Xbox Series X sales beat PS5 in February as stock issues bite

For the first time since launch the Xbox Series X/S has outsold the PS5 in Europe, thank to Sony suffering new stock problems.

The rule of thumb for console sales has always been that the Xbox and PlayStation are roughly neck-and-neck in the US and UK, while the PlayStation dominates in Europe and the Xbox is irrelevant in Japan.

There’s always some variation to this, depending on the specific console and country, but there’s nothing so far to suggest that much has changed this generation. And yet, surprisingly, Xbox Series X/S outsold the PlayStation 5 for the first time in Europe last month.

However, GamesIndustry.biz suggest that this is entirely due to stock levels, with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X still struggling but the Xbox Series S easily available in most countries.

As ever, there were no actual numbers to quantify the difference and the UK and Germany are not included in the data, despite being the two biggest European markets. The UK tends to be almost as Xbox friendly as the US, while traditionally Germany heavily favours the PlayStation.

Even with the Xbox Series S availability though the Nintendo Switch was still the number one selling format across Europe. Its sales dropped by 14% compared to 2021 but are still up 52% on pre-pandemic 2020, which is very impressive for a five-year-old console.

The pan-European report also hammers home just how big a hit Elden Ring has been across the world. It’s already been named the biggest game launch in the UK since Red Dead Redemption 2 (not counting FIFA or Call Of Duty) and the best-selling game of 2022 in the US, but now in Europe it can also claim to be the biggest new IP launch since Tom Clancy’s The Division in 2016.

The PC tends to be the most popular format in mainland Europe, so it’s no surprise to find that Elden Ring saw 44% of all sales go to that version, followed by PlayStation 5 on 27%, Xbox on 16%, and PlayStation 4 on 13%. (Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S sales are not distinguished between, especially in terms of physical sales which only have one box for both.)

Elden Ring wasn’t necessarily number one in every country in February though, with Germany preferring Pokémon Legends: Arceus on the Switch.

Overall, Horizon Forbidden West was the second biggest game of the month in Europe, but with only 59% of sales on the PlayStation 5 – a smaller slice of the pie than in the UK, which demonstrates why Sony continues to make cross-gen games.

European GSD February 2022 Top 20 Games