[Europe] PS5 leads the market with a 369% growth YOY, followed by Switch (down 18%) and then Xbox Series S and X (down 10%)

[Unchained]

Q1 PC and console game sales down 11% across Europe | European Monthly Charts

Console sales are up 41% for the quarter across selected markets

www.gamesindustry.biz

Hogwarts Legacy is comfortably the best-selling game of the quarter and it is the fastest selling game in Europe (outside of the FIFA franchise) since the GSD charts started in 2017.

Despite this, last year featured a larger number of big releases, including Elden Ring, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Horizon: Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7.

Hogwarts may be the biggest game of the quarter, but it was Resident Evil 4 that claimed No.1 in March. Capcom's horror remake grabbed the top spot after just two weeks on sale.

Resident Evil 4's first two week sales across Europe was 19% lower than 2021's Resident Evil Village and 11% lower than 2019's Resident Evil 2 remake. But it's up 57% compared with the remake of Resident Evil 3 in 2020.

Looking at a more recent horror game, Resident Evil 4's first two weeks are up 149% compared with the remake of Dead Space, which was released in January.

PS5 SALES CONTINUE TO SURGE

Console hardware sales were up 67% to 570,000 units sold across selected European countries during March, driven by huge sales for PS5.

(The countries include France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Portugal. For the full list, see below. For UK console data, click here)

Across those markets, PS5 sales are up by five times in March 2023 compared with the year before. In 2022 there had been severe stock shortages for Sony's console.

The surge in PlayStation sales offset declines elsewhere, Switch sales are down 19% across the markets compared with March 2022, while Xbox Series S and X sales are down 13%.

For the first quarter of the year, 1.5m consoles have been sold across the selected countries, which is a rise of 41% over the first quarter of last year. PS5 leads the market with a 369% year-on-year sales rise, followed by Switch (down 18%) and then Xbox Series S and X (down 10%).

European GSD March 2023 Top 10 (Digital + Physical)​

Position	Title
1	Resident Evil 4 (Capcom)
2	Hogwarts Legacy (Warner Bros)
3	FIFA 23 (EA)
4	Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
5	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Blizzard)
6	Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
7	WWE 2K23 (2K Games)
8	F1 22 (Capcom)
9	NBA 2K23 (2K Games)
10	Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (Ubisoft)

 

[Angie]

 

[ethomaz]

So the Capcom data for REmake 4 was shipped and it is not selling better than previous releases in EU at least.

That makes sense… Japan didn’t show better sales sales too.

That means US + UK have to be way up compared with Village to make it sales bigger but if you take the Capcom number as shipped it makes sense they just shipped more for REmake 4 than Village but ended selling less.

 

[Dabaus]

Ahem, SALESDONTMATTER

sORRY SWEATY

 

[Gods&Monsters]

PS5 up 369% and Xbox down 10%. I'm pretty sure Xbox had shortages too last year, not only PS5?

So it's selling even less than with shortages

 

[BigMclargeHuge]

Xbox is dead in Europe it seems.

 

[FatKaz]

Xbox is dead in Europe it seems.

 

[Dabaus]

Xbox sales being down 10 percent says to me, that it wasnt selling all that great to begin with so even though the percentage isnt that high, i think its because sales couldnt go much lower. If that makes sense.


GTVision from resetera said:

"For what it's worth, keep in mind that for hardware sales only the following countries are included in this: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. It's highly likely that UK and Germany, the most notable countries absent from this list, show a similar trend though."

Wow so it could be alot more than 10 percent because 2 of the larger markets are not included.

 

[Swift_Star]

lowering sales in a gen that it's in its 3rd year, a gen that is still recovering from covid and that's clearly still in its infancy is a really bad look from xbox.
this gen will be a disaster for them and taking abk games from playstation would make matters even worse for the company.

 

[Loy310]

PS5

 

[AshHunter216]

Yeah, it's clear going forward that MS will use the sales beating they're receiving to justify buying as much as they can get away with, but if their leadership continues to suck, it won't matter too much.

 

[FatKaz]

Xbox sales being down 10 percent says to me, that it wasnt selling all that great to begin with so even though the percentage isnt that high, i think its because sales couldnt go much lower. If that makes sense.


GTVision from resetera said:

"For what it's worth, keep in mind that for hardware sales only the following countries are included in this: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. It's highly likely that UK and Germany, the most notable countries absent from this list, show a similar trend though."

Wow so it could be alot more than 10 percent because 2 of the larger markets are not included.

UK is expected as the tracking is seperate and we get sales data posted by gbiz separately from europe.

But yeah germany is the biggest missing one which is shocking tbh, as it's supposed to be a big market.

And no doubt ps5 will be posting big number in those missing places.

 

[Loy310]

Yeah, it's clear going forward that MS will use the sales beating they're taking to justify buying as much as they can get away with, but if their leadership continues to suck, it won't matter much.

Companies are gonna want to have to sell tho.

 

[SLB1904]

Yeah, it's clear going forward that MS will use the sales beating they're taking to justify buying as much as they can get away with, but if their leadership continues to suck, it won't matter much.

Who cares at this point. Buying stuff away won't make them relevant.

 

[AshHunter216]

Companies are gonna want to have to sell tho.

True, I just hope none of the ones I like want to sell.

 

[Gediminas]

UK is expected as the tracking is seperate and we get sales data posted by gbiz separately from europe.

But yeah germany is the biggest missing one which is shocking tbh, as it's supposed to be a big market.

And no doubt ps5 will be posting big number in those missing places.

Germany sells switch and its games. So the gap could be even greater.

 

[voke]

Yeah, it's clear going forward that MS will use the sales beating they're receiving to justify buying as much as they can get away with, but if their leadership continues to suck, it won't matter too much.

Anything they buy will fall with them. We're witnessing the end of Bethesda and ABK. Sony has enough clout to replace any of their content and the market will follow.

 

[Dabaus]

lowering sales in a gen that it's in its 3rd year, a gen that is still recovering from covid and that's clearly still in its infancy is a really bad look from xbox.
this gen will be a disaster for them and taking abk games from playstation would make matters even worse for the company.

Before this gen started im sure the plan was:

-subscription gaming will take off like netflix
-cloud gaming will take off sometime this gen
-series S will sell well because of price
-Series X will be the most powerful console
-halo infinite will be a launch title and be a return to form
-Acquisition's will help regain some market share and have some exclusives

On Paper all of that makes sense and seems reasonable, ESPCIALLY after covid happened. If anything that probably helped microsft double down and accelerate all these plans.

The reality is:
-subscription gaming or cloud gaming isnt something the masses want,
-the Xbox brand of consoles is still extremely undesirables regardless of any perceived advantages
-As time goes on there are NO perceived advantages, especially now that 30 fps games are the standard for xbox first party
-Halo infinite was delayed and was such a disaster it destroyed the franchise
-Xbox and Microsoft Management has been horrendous
-The Japanese market is ignoring them so bad they want government intervention
-First and Third party software sales have collapsed due to encouraging a "wait for gamepass" mentality

I think gamepass is just Kinect on steroids. It has its niche audience but by going all in 100 percent on it theyve tied their console and brand to a niche that the masses dont really care for and Sony has done a decent enough job to replicate gamepass with ps plus getting a good catalogue of games every month. Problem is for Microsoft is that they really have no where else to go besides mobile gaming now because they cant go back to the traditional form of gaming without a gamepass subscription.

One unforeseen thing no one can plan for is just how popular ps5 is. I think Microosft hoped this gen would be a reset and sony would screw up but neither of those things happened either. The longer this gen plays out, the more it seems like Microsoft bet on all the wrong horses and the only thing that didnt make this obvious immediately were the shortages. What we're seeing now is the mode console market. Microsoft bet on everything but games for a gaming console and its all catching up to them now.

 

[AshHunter216]

Anything they buy will fall with them. We're witnessing the end of Bethesda and ABK. Sony has enough clout to replace any of their content and the market will follow.

Yeah, it just speaks volumes that out of the big 3, all of which have had periods in which they were falling behind, only Microsoft felt the need to try and buy up large chunks of the industry in order to make a recovery. Sony and Nintendo bounced back without having to do anything close to that.

 

[Loy310]

True, I just hope none of the ones I like want to sell.

I cant see many of them selling when they can now crush it with abk out of the way, now a lot of console pubs have room to grow with literally less competition.