The Nintendo Switch continues to perform very well, selling most units of any other gaming hardware in the U.S. in January, according to game analyst The NPD Group. But Sony’s PlayStation 5 still made more money last month, despite a more limited offer.
According to the January NPD report, the Switch was the best-selling hardware platform in terms of units sold in January – the highest of any platform in that specific month since the Nintendo Wii in 2010. Despite that, the next console Sony’s generation achieved the highest total dollar sales for the month of January, breaking the previous record set by the Nintendo Wii in 2009.
There are a few reasons why the Switch may have sold more units, but made less money than the PS5. Most notably, the PS5’s starting price starts at $ 100 more than the Switch, with the digital only PS5 selling for $ 400 and the disk drive model selling for $ 500.
The PS5 was released almost three months ago, just like the Xbox Series X / S, the PS5 was much difficult to buy, with retailers mainly hosting online sales due to severe supply shortages. With no signs of retailers selling PS5 in stores soon due to the ongoing pandemic, the only way to buy a PS5 at a retail store is to wait for another wave of PS5 refills to appear online. But when they do, they usually run out in minutes, and Sony’s strong figures for the month suggest that it is running out of stock as quickly as possible. The NPD report makes no mention of Microsoft’s new Xbox consoles.
The Nintendo console was also affected by the pandemic, as the Switch was somewhat difficult to find last spring, but supplies have remained relatively healthy since then. The Switch also saw replenishments of the basic console and several packages, including some limited edition ones like the newly released Mario themed package.