Switch 2 Best-Seller as Sales Top 8M - Worldwide Hardware Estimates for August 2025 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 09 October 2025 / 14,618 Views
The Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling console worldwide with 1,112,719 units sold for August 2025, according to VGChartz estimates. The Switch 2 has sold 8.16 million units lifetime.
The PlayStation 5 was the second best-selling console with an estimated 875,798 units sold to bring lifetime sales to 79.09 million units. The Nintendo Switch 1 was the third best-selling console with an estimated 259,568 units sold to bring lifetime sales to 151.62 million units. The Xbox Series X|S came in fourth place with 123,644 units sold to bring its lifetime sales to 33.53 million units.
Switch 2 sales compared to the third month for Switch 1 in 2017 are up by 0.62 million units, as the Switch 1 sold 493,849 units in its third month worldwide in May 2017.
PS5 sales compared to the same month for the PS4 in 2018 are up by over 20,000 units, while the Xbox Series X|S compared to the same month for the Xbox One are down by over 254,000 units. PS4 sold 855,409 units for the month of August 2018 and Xbox One sales were at 377,679 units.
PlayStation 5 sales compared to the same month a year ago are down by 228,311 (-20.7%). Xbox Series X|S sales are down by 150,886 units (-55.0%) and Nintendo Switch 1 sales are down by 426,339 units (-62.2%).
Looking at sales month-on-month, Nintendo Switch 2 sales are down by over 491,000 units, PlayStation 5 sales are up by over 93,000 units, Xbox Series X|S sales are down by over 6,000 units, and Nintendo Switch 1 sales are up by nearly 6,000.
2025 year-to-date, the Nintendo Switch 2 has sold 8.16 million units, the PlayStation 5 has sold an estimated 7.06 million units, the Nintendo Switch 1 has sold 2.99 million units, and the Xbox Series X|S has sold 1.54 million units.
Monthly Sales:
Global hardware estimates for August 2025 (Followed by lifetime sales):
- Switch 2 - 1,112,719 (8,160,186)
- PlayStation 5 - 875,798 (79,091,713)
- Switch 1 - 259,568 (151,621,030)
- Xbox Series X|S - 123,644 (33,532,401)
- Switch 2 - 371,469
- PlayStation 5 - 203,299
- Xbox Series X|S - 71,768
- Switch 1 - 54,429
- PlayStation 5 - 273,627
- Switch 2 - 235,187
- Switch 1 - 80,914
- Xbox Series X|S - 38,356
- Switch 2 - 476,731
- PlayStation 5 - 366,695
- Switch 1 - 118,277
- Xbox Series X|S - 7,751
- PlayStation 5 - 32,177
- Switch 2 - 29,332
- Switch 1 - 5,948
- Xbox Series X|S - 5,769
Weekly Sales:
Global August 9, 2025 hardware estimates:
- Switch 2 - 307,251
- PlayStation 5 - 192,787
- Switch 1 - 62,769
- Xbox Series X|S - 29,581
Global August 16, 2025 hardware estimates:
- Switch 2 - 328,980
- PlayStation 5 - 207,366
- Switch 1 - 65,391
- Xbox Series X|S - 32,697
Global August 23, 2025 hardware estimates:
- Switch 2 - 232,644
- PlayStation 5 - 204,410
- Switch 1 - 64,993
- Xbox Series X|S - 30,925
Global August 30, 2025 hardware estimates:
- Switch 2 - 243,844
- PlayStation 5 - 271,235
- Switch 1 - 66,415
- Xbox Series X|S - 30,441
VGChartz Methodology: Hardware estimates are based on retail sampling and trends in individual countries, which are then extrapolated to represent the wider region. This typically allows us to produce figures that end up being within 10% of the actual totals.
This data is regularly compared against official shipment figures released by the console manufacturers and figures estimated by regional trackers with greater market coverage than ourselves. We then update our own estimates to bring them into line with those figures. This can result in frequent changes often within a short space of time, but we feel it's important to prioritise accuracy over consistency.
Note that our estimates are based on sell-through data (units sold to consumers). In almost all cases the figures released by console manufacturers are based on shipment data (sell-in), where as soon as a device has left the factory and entered the supply chain for delivery it is considered a sale. This is why there is always a difference between the companies’ figures (sell-in) and VGChartz estimates (sell-through), even after we’ve made adjustments. The one exception to that is when a console has been discontinued and the remaining stock has finally sold out – at that point the figures will match.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Wait… didn’t Switch see a price hike on August 1st? How is it up 6,000 MoM?? Also, the current trajectory of NSW places it at 4.5-6.25mil FY’2026. That is extremely good pace!! Far better than I was expecting. At 300k/month, that’s nearly 1mil per non-holiday quarter.
PS5 continues to do solid. Definitely should hit their 15mil FY goal, and this is in spite of recent price hikes. I see a very solid holiday upcoming due to Yotēi, DS2, and consumers looking to get a PS5 in anticipation of GTAVI.
XBSXS got outsold by NSW 2:1… not much more to say than September will be a rough month for Microsoft. With Xbox and GamePass seeing price hikes, there is little momentum for this system.
NS2 continues going very strong! MoM sees a significant drop, though this can mostly be attributed to (i) DKBananza boosting sales for the latter-half of July, and (ii) global shortages are worsening (most notably in Japan), likely due to Nintendo ramping up stockpiling efforts for holidays.
The price increased in the US and many retailers didn't increase the price for several weeks.
But even then, Switch stayed steady at 11k/wk in US. I guess people might just be purchasing less of the OLED and more of Lite/OG?
@trunkswd Could you please explain, why PS5 sold 271k units during the last August week? On the front page we can see that it's 51k in the US, 68k in Europe and 8k in Japan. This would mean that more than half of the sales (144k) were in Rest of the World, which seems very unlikely to me.
The PS5 was on sale in China from August 25 to 31. It is possible we overestimated or underestimated the boost in sales from the sale. We get very little data out of China.
There is a few points here.
First. There may be further adjustments, not only for US, but in EU too, just like many other times, when the quarter reports go out. So both of them may go down, or even up. But there is the case where after the adjustments the Switch is slightly down from the month prior.
Second. This can be contributed primary to the sales in Japan being stronger than the month prior. So while US sales take some hit, Japan sales compensate that, while Europe ones were around the same, or even slightly higher, but not lower for sure. So in short, EU and JP sales compensated for the US drops which resulted in slightly stronger month than July.
Third. As trunks said, many retailers didn't increase the price right away. I personally expect the drop in sales in the US to continue through September and October.
PS5 being down -20% year-on-year globally reads quite rough at first.
Until you see this still translates to 876k units sold globally.
I mean that's really good, isn't it. 5th year, August, 876k units in a single month, no holiday season yet, suprisingly close to Switch 2 and another 7:1 globally vs. X|S.
Congrats to both. Actually to Switch 1, too, which is still outselling X|S.
X|S being down another -55% year-on-year ... I mean it's brutal, it really is. What else is there to say really.
(I, personally though, still think X|S is overtracked anyway, and that their situation and units sold are actually worse.)
Sega Saturn and Dreamcast lifetime sales will very soon be overtaken by the Switch 2, and after that the Wii U and PS Vita.
At this point I expect Nintendo in their next financial report to increase Switch 2 shipments to at least 18 million. Maybe even increase the Switch 1 estimates seeing as how that system hasn't slowed down as much as anyone was expecting.
-60%
Soon the PS5 should surpass the GBA and the PSP, maybe in October if sales are good.
But the cliff! The cliff! /s
GBA had 3,5 years on the market before it was ”replaced” though. That’s an insane run.
Why Nintendo killed it when they had so perfect run with it ? Couldn't they waited another 2 or even 3 years ?
PSP was around the corner and the annoucement of its existence made Nintendo's stock fall down 10% at E3 2003. Playstation had dominated the home market and seemed to poise to take the handheld market. The DS was a miracle and a strike of genius.
Supposedly, Switch had reached 150.86 in Dec. of '24. Seems slightly under tracked here, then? I may be estimating incorrectly, but seems like it would have reached the 151.6 back in June at latest?
I have it tracking on shipment. Sales reports are about 2-3M lower than shipments.
Shipment: ~153.61M
Sold: ~151.62M
