According to The NPD Group, the PS5 outsold both the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox Series X|S line of consoles in January 2022. The exact number of units sold wasn’t shared, but it marks an excellent start to the PS5’s second year on the market. Sony looks poised to repeat the success of the PS4, but there are some obstacles in the way.
Why did the PS5 outsell the Switch and Xbox Series X|S in January 2022 according to NPD?
https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1492134810424205312
Being a PlayStation-centric website, we, of course, love the PS5. However, we can’t credit its victory in sales numbers totally to the quality of the console and its software library. NPD’s figures are skewed by the continuing supply issues that all three console makers are experiencing.
Until a steady supply of consoles is available, we can’t read into these numbers too hard. The PS5 could have pulled ahead due to better availability. After all, if you’re in the market for a console and there aren’t any Switches or Xboxes around, then you’ll likely pick up an PS5 instead. That’s not necessarily the case here, but it’s too early in this gen to make any assumptions based on a month of data.
NPD also shared the top 20 PlayStation titles in the US of January 2022:
- Call of Duty: Vanguard
- Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Madden NFL 22
- FIFA 22
- Rainbow Six: Extraction
- Ghost of Tsushima
- Marvel’s Spider-Man
- Battlefield 2042
- NBA 2K22
- Far Cry 6
Opinion: Popular sentiment doesn’t equal sales figures
Looking at the top 10 games based on dollar sales provided by NPD is a sobering experience. Ubisoft, a company that most have written off as morally bankrupt, managed to get two titles in the top ten. I’ve heard nothing about Rainbow Six Extraction, and it’s not even in the top 100 viewed games on Twitch. Yet, somehow it managed to be the fifth best-selling game of January 2022 on PlayStation consoles.
It just goes to show that games that social media and industry hype doesn’t translate into purchases. Call of Duty: Vanguard is maybe the least talked about game in the series ever, but it’s PlayStation’s top seller. It’s strange.
