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

metro.co.uk:

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