Xbox Series S / X and Nintendo Switch sales improve in June | UK monthly charts

More than 183,000 consoles were sold in the UK in the four weeks ending July 3, according to the latest data from GfK.

That’s a 6% increase from month to month.

The PS5 was the best-selling console, although stock levels were slightly lower than in the previous four-week period. The Xbox Series S / X was the second best-selling set of consoles, followed by the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo and Xbox machines both sold better in June than in May.

In the first six months of the year, UK game consoles exceeded 1.1 million (weighted) sales, a 25% increase from the same period the year before. The PS5 is the best-selling device, closely followed by the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox Series S / X.

In terms of games, GSD data shows that 2.5 million digital and physical games were sold in the UK in June. This is a decrease of 29.7% compared to the same period last year. June 2020 was still buoyant due to COVID-19 lockdowns, but there was also the big release of The Last of Us Part 2 on PlayStation 4.

Digital games accounted for 1.62 million games sold last month, down 31.4% year-over-year. Physical retail trade accounted for 876,000, a decrease of 26.4%. Nintendo was the most successful retail physical game publisher in June, while Ubisoft was the largest digital publisher.

Sony had the biggest new game of the month in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PlayStation 5, followed by Nintendo with Mario Golf: Super Rush on Switch. But June really belonged to FIFA 21, which was the best-selling game of the period.

A total of 731,879 accessories were sold in July, according to Gfk. That’s 19% up from the previous month, but down 19.6% from the same period in 2020. The aftermarket boom last year due to lockdowns from COVID- 19.

The DualSense White remains the best-selling accessory. The official PS5 controller was joined this month by two new color variants: the Midnight Black version debuts at # 2, while the Cosmic Red edition arrives at # 4.

GfK shared with us some interesting comparisons in the aftermarket for the first half of the year. For the first six months of 2021, revenue from controllers grew by 7% and headsets increased by 9%, which is quite modest considering the new consoles that have just launched. However, these products performed very well in the first lockdown last year.

However, there are other categories that are still growing strongly. Flywheel revenue increased 39% in 2021, thanks to Logitech’s hugely popular Driving Force Wheels G29 and G920. Gaming chairs are up 64% (X-Rocker is the big engine) and gaming mice are up 47% (due to Logitech’s G Pro and G502, as well as Razer’s Viper and Naga Trinity. ).

The renewed interest in flight simulators (especially Microsoft’s new game) saw these controllers increase sales by 74% in the first half of the year.

Finally, console hard drives are up 77% since the start of the year, with 2TB versions accounting for around seven out of ten hard drives sold.

GSD June 2021 Top 20 games (digital + physical)

* Numerical data not available

GSD digital data includes games of participating companies sold through Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. The participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Big Ben Interactive, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media, Konami, Microids, Microsoft, Milestone, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Strelka , Take-Two, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and Bethesda are notable absentees, alongside smaller studios.