PS5 Was the Best-Selling Console in the US for Black Friday Week - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 December 2025 / 14,562 Views
Senior Director & Video Game Industry Thought Leader at Circana Mat Piscatella has revealed some hardware sales information for the US for the week of Black Friday, which ended November 29.
The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling hardware platform with 47 percent of the total number of units sold for the week. The Nintendo Switch 2 came in second place with 24 percent of sales, followed by the NEX Playground Interactive Gaming System in third place with 14 percent of sales.
This leaves 15 percent of the overall numbers for the Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and any other platforms like the PC handhelds.
The previous week (week ending November 22), the Nintendo Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle was the best-selling hardware SKU, followed by the NEX Playground Interactive Gaming System in second place, and the PlayStation 5 Slim Digital Edition 1 TB in third place.
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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XBSXS falling behind the NEX in their strongest region… that’s quite awful.
Funny enough I had never heard of the NEX until Mat mentioned it last week. It is basically a $250 standalone Kinect that comes with a handful of free games, while you need to pay a subscription to access the rest of the content.
I’ve seen them at Walmart and Target. They have more prominent displays than Xbox does.
The complete collapse of the Xbox brand is a sight to behold. No surprises really, as their current management is probably the worst we have seen in a quarter of a century.
people keep saying that on but on gamestop for example used xbox ones(and used ps4) sell as much as used ps5/series x/s.. just cause ms is not encouraging a higher adoption rate of xbox consoles now by doing price cuts,bundles, promos doesnt mean they wont in the future. it makes no sense for them to sell xbox at loss if they are moving towards an open platform system and away from a walled garden.
«just cause ms is not encouraging a higher adoption rate of xbox consoles»
Although we both will probably disagree with eachother:
What you're describing here is actually a situation no manufacturer wants to get in - if you choose to participate in the market of home consoles or any product whatsoever.
And we've seen this happening even before X|S times and times again, in all fairness.
Wether it was the Gamecube, PS3 (in early years - but still, PS3 was a loss overall, financially) or WiiU.
Before November 2020, Spencer, didn't go out and said:
"We actually don't care if you'll be buying X|S."
Spencer pushed their PR about that 12TF machine and the budget-friendly S as if he knew they'd be taking over two of the biggest publishers in the industry soon.
But it's been their spin ever since they would notice PS5 is racing ahead.
And just look at what type of unfavourable situation poor console sales are causing even today and in the future:
While Sony are in the rather comfortable situation to be feeding from PS5's success (which will see another boost next year) and make strategic decisions about when to release PS6 ...
... Xbox would quite certainly end X|S rather tommorrow than next week, losely speaking.
But looking at the surges of hardware prices - if they'd start production of their "premium specced" Xbox Next in 2026/early 2027, which means they'll have to order and buy parts soon - man, I can't imagine what's gonna be their RRP.
Ever since 2013, Xbox' strategies seem to be 'doomed'.
And it's at least very likely that even their 3rd concurrent hardware generation is off to a very bad start.
I can't imagine what must be going on behind the curtains in Redmond.
I don't think that's happening at all. There has been a complete collapse of Xbox console sales. But, Microsoft has grown their gaming business significantly (mostly via acquisitions), and consolidated essentially all of their gaming business under the Xbox brand. Xbox is now the biggest brand in traditional gaming.
"Xbox is now the biggest brand in traditional gaming.“
By what metric(s)?
As a third party publisher they are the biggest publisher sure but as a global gaming brand they are terrible. If they were the biggest brand they would have been able to sell some consoles in the last 15 years.
How even as 3rd party? For what? Because you're then purposely excluding Tencent.
Edit: and VMatt talked about "biggest brand in traditional gaming".
Which he of course, despite or rather inspite of being asked, didn't want to explain any further.
No. Tencent is dominant in mobile. I'm talking about the traditional gaming market. That's why I said "traditional gaming".
If you don't include Minecraft in the traditional gaming category, that might change things a little bit. But, certainly not enough to move Xbox out of the top three.
By sales. And this is not an opinion. It's an easily verifiable fact.
Keep in mind that they own two of the three biggest properties in gaming. Call of Duty, and Minecraft
You're applying a very narrow definition of "3rd party publisher" here and basically wrapping it only around Call of Duty and Minecraft.
Eventhough Tencent is publishing games everywhere. And are outperforming Microsoft Gaming in total revenue by a mile.
And even Sony does publish games everywhere, also outperforming Microsoft Gaming in total revenue and in total software being shipped.
So, again, when you're talking about facts and sales - what sales are you talking about? Only Minecraft and Call of Duty? Why only those? What's you're definition of 3rd party publisher?
(Call of Duty by the way achieved most of the franchise's sales even before Microsoft bought it.)
You know what, you are correct that both Tencent and Sony have higher gaming revenue than MS. I actually thought that MS had passed Sony. But, it seems that most sources show Sony with higher revenue from gaming. However, they are all pretty close to each other (the top three range from $24b to $32b). Netease and Nintendo are about tied for 4th with $11b. Tencent and Netease are mostly mobile though. Neither of them rank near the top in the traditional gaming market (PC, console, dedicated handheld). So, it's Sony (mostly under the PS brand) and MS (mostly under the XB brand).
So, I'll modify my original statement. "Xbox is the second biggest brand in the traditional gaming market." Either way, the notion that the XBox brand is collapsing is absurd. It is huge, and has been growing substantially over the last several years.
«and has been growing substantially over the last several years.»
Frankly, I don't perceive buying out ActivisionBlizzardKing and adding their 7bn annual revenue to Microsoft Gaming as growth.
In fact, the Xbox division was in decline already, with ABK pulling the year on year revenue back into positive.
The same goes with every former 3rd party IP they bought and now publish.
Frankly, I don't perceive six (!) price increases across the Xbox product portfolio since 2020 as growth.
All of that, ABK and price increases, contributed to Microsoft's Gaming revenue by simple addition.
Microsoft Gaming shot every bullet they had. And their last quarter report now showed a decline already (as it was expected).
Let's watch their "growth" from now on.
And as far as your own definition of a 3rd party publisher goes:
Frankly, I disagree, too. Because it really is about facts like you yourself said.
Tencent is a 3rd party publisher, publishing games everywhere.
Even mobile is software - guess what AB's King's division is for Microsoft Gaming? According to your definition, you should then substract King's revenue, too.
To me you're picking cherries here.
That's also absurd. You just went and picked all the rotten cherries off the tree.
Anyway, I'm not going to argue with you. It's obvious that you're not interested in dealing with facts. You've made up a bunch of nonsensical criteria. At the end of the day, we're on a video game sales website, talking about video game businesses. Revenue is the generally accepted way that businesses are compared. And when you compare gaming businesses this way, there's no argument to be made that Xbox is not huge, and growing..
If you're going by revenue, as you yourself said, then Playstation and Tencent are switching the #1 spot annually.
Making Xbox 3rd.
And if you didn't notice: Xbox' revenue was declining in the last quarter already.
And it highly likely will keep doing so across their remaining quarters and fiscal year reports.
Look at the thread that you're talking on here dude. You've made up nonsense criteria to argue a ridiculous point. You are making a fool of yourself.
I think Nex outsold PS5 last week so I don't think it's as bad as it sounds
It outsold the best selling PS5 SKU, not combined SKU's. But NEX sold about two whole thirds as much as Switch 2, so Xbox losing to it is not a big deal.
The big deal though is that NEX didn't just beat it, it likely dominated it (sold around as much as Xbox, Switch 1, and PC handhelds combined).
PS5 beating Switch 2 when Switch 2 is the newest, hottest thing... is quite the accompaniment. I'm sure Sony is patting themselves on the back for that one.
Accompaniment? Do you mean “accomplishment”? Also, same exact thing happened with Switch 1 (which actually sat comfortably in third place during November 2017)… so not necessarily the biggest feat. BF is holiday shopping for items with heavy discounts, and only one of the two systems had this.
The Switch2 Mario Kart bundle did get a $50 discount.
That was for Cyber Monday though, no? Switch 2 had nothing as far as I’m aware.
Unsure when that deal started because it’s not an official sale, it was a retailer-led sale(the discount is coming straight from the the retail margin). Which does imply that retailers might have overstocked.
It’s possible, though it could also just be that retailers wanted a competitive edge over others during the weekend where everyone would be doing their holiday shopping.
(I know at least that the systems did almost immediately go out-of-stock upon receiving the discount… so many not an overstocking issue.)
LMAO !! NEX is a POS system parents are hoping their kids will like and use more than a console. A year from now it will be forgotten.
The most desired console in the world still selling like hotcakes
All hail NEX Playground Interactive Gaming System, the OUYA killer
Incredible ps5 sales
The NEX revolution is coming
Nnnn, honestly I think the Nexus thing coming out of nowhere is great. The console market has room to expand if people are willing to think out the box.
I also found it unfortunate the way MS dropped Kinect the minute the Xbox One struggled when they promised all this great usebility features in traditional games. If you treat something like a gimmick that's exactly what it will become
Not too surprising, PS5 was the only console with a "real" sale for BF
I wonder if Black Friday week is enough for the PS5 to beat the Switch 2 for all of November since we know Switch 2 sold more the previous weeks. Also, I wonder what the comparison to last year is. Either way it seems to be a great Black Friday for Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft should have really done a Black Friday deal for Xbox.
The Switch 2 MKW bundle was the best selling SKU the previous week, but we don't know overall numbers/rankings.
Exactly, the week prior to this Switch had the top sku but not necessarily the top console since PS5 has several models with discounts on all of them.
