PS5 sales hit 1 million in UK

Britain’s favourite console of 2021 has just hit 1m sales despite consumers still waiting for stock

The PS5 is now officially the fastest selling video game console ever in the UK… and you might even be able to buy one this week.

You might already have assumed it was, given it’s already been named the fastest-selling console ever in the US, but the PlayStation 5 has now officially earned that accolade in the UK as well.

It’s an achievement that is genuinely extraordinary given that the console is still extremely hard to get hold of and rarely remains in stock at any store for more than 30 minutes.

Sony’s console achieved the feat in August, just 39 weeks after launch. This is three weeks faster than the PS4, making PS5 the fastest-selling PlayStation console in UK history.

Up until July, PS4 was still trending ahead of PS5 in the UK, but that switched around as more PS5 stock came into the market.

For the four weeks ending August 28th, over 151,500 games consoles were sold in the UK (GfK panel data). That means almost 1.4 million games devices have been sold this year, which is up more than a third over 2020.

PS5 was the dominant console. It started August slowly, but an influx of stock saw it comfortably out-perform its competitors. Nintendo Switch was the second best-selling console of the month, although slightly down over July. Xbox Series S and X is at No.3.

In the accessories charts, it is again a strong month for PlayStation. The DualSense White controller was No.1 for another month, with the PS4 DualShock just behind. The Pulse 3D Wireless Headset for PS4 and PS5 jumps two places to No.5, while the rest of the Top Five is made up of the Black and Red DualSense controller.

Overall, 632,822 accessories were sold in the UK last month, which is 9.3% up over July, but down 1.2% compared with August 2020 (Gfk data).

That’s unlikely to change until at least next year but the frequency with which stores get new stock has been steadily increasing over the last few months, with GAME due to get a major restock this week.

GSD August 2021 Top 20 Games (Digital + Physical)

Position	Title
1	Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
2	Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut (Sony)
3	FIFA 21 (EA)
4	Aliens: Fireteam Elite (Focus Entertainment)
5	F1 2021 (EA/Codemasters)
6	Far Cry 5 (Ubisoft)
7	Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft)
8	Humankind (Sega)
9	Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (Activision Blizzard)
10	Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
11	Olympics Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game (Sega)
12	Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony)
13	Minecraft: Switch Edition* (Nintendo/Mojang)
14	The Crew 2 (Ubisoft)
15	Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo) *
16	Forza Motorsport 7 (Microsoft)
17	Marvel’s Avengers (Square Enix)
18	Mortal Kombat 11 (Warner Bros)
19	Battlefield 5 (EA)
20	Minecraft (Mojang/Microsoft)

Hardware (and software) numbers are rarely revealed for the UK but according to GamesIndustry.biz the PlayStation 5 passed the 1 million sales mark in August, a mere 39 weeks after launch.

That means that, despite the stock issues, the console reached the milestone three weeks faster than the PlayStation 4, which had no stock problems and until now was the fastest selling console in the UK.

Unlike previous console generations, the PlayStation 5 has faced stiff competition from both Nintendo and Microsoft, with the Nintendo Switch being the second best seller in recent months and the Xbox Series X/S, which is also supply constrained, the third.

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However, any direct comparison between the sales of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S are still relatively meaningless until both consoles are easily available, which isn’t likely to be any time soon.

That’s not an official announcement but high sales or not, following rumours and getting up early to pounce on stock as soon as it’s available, has been the only way for most people to get a next gen console.

The PlayStation 5 Disc & Digital Edition consoles (+bundles) have been given the green light within GAME, planned to drop on Thursday 30th September. This is the final date, no more changes are expected. Should be a 9am-11:30am drop.