{"id":622688,"date":"2026-06-05T13:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622688\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T13:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:14:09","slug":"playstation-5-hardware-sales-dropped-dramatically-in-the-uk-last-month-vs-xbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622688\/","title":{"rendered":"PlayStation 5 hardware sales dropped dramatically in the UK last month vs Xbox"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Current-generation Xbox hardware sales have been low in all major markets, registering <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/xbox-suffers-worst-year-on-record-for-console-sales-in-the-uk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">its worst-ever year in the UK last year<\/a>. Fortunes almost turned in May, however, a month when PlayStation suffered a big drop in its own sales.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s according to The Game Business host, and industry analyst, Christopher Dring, who <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/dringo.bsky.social\/post\/3mnh7r5gnh22k\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">revealed<\/a> that PS5 hardware sales dropped by a shocking 50 percent during the month of May in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>The drop was almost enough for Xbox to catch up, but Sony maintained its lead. By the end of the month, PS5 hardware had outsold Xbox Series X\/S consoles by just 400 units.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the launch of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/forza-horizon-6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Forza Horizon 6<\/a> is what gave Xbox the sales push, even if it was only a 12 percent bump. Horizon 6 was released to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/forza-horizon-6-review\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">near-universal critical and player acclaim<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vg247.com\/forza-horizon-6-steam-numbers-big-launch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">set sales records<\/a> for the franchise across PC and Xbox, so that boost makes sense.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"button video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=H1qlPZMfmiU\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The open-world driving game, of course, is also in development for PS5. Though it does not yet have a release date beyond &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/forza-horizon-6-shows-off-largest-ever-map-as-microsoft-confirms-a-may-release\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">later this year<\/a>&#8216;, it&#8217;s expected to sell incredibly well on Sony&#8217;s console when it eventually arrives, at least judging by how well its predecessor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/forza-horizon-5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Forza Horizon 5<\/a>, has performed when it came to PlayStation last year. Horizon 5 has reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/forza-horizon-5-ps5-port-tops-5-million-sales-securing-300m-in-additional-sales-for-xbox\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sold over 5 million units on PS5<\/a> alone, and was, for a while, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/former-xbox-console-exclusive-forza-horizon-5-is-ps5s-highest-selling-game-of-the-year-so-far-says-analyst\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2025&#8217;s best-selling game on PS5<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also worth noting that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/saros\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Saros<\/a>, the PlayStation exclusive released on 30 April, does not appear to have helped Sony&#8217;s hardware fortunes. Unfortunately for the platform holder, Saros <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/saros-ps5-sales-launch-returnal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has not performed anywhere near well enough at launch<\/a> to be able to push hardware sales.<\/p>\n<p>Unaffected by any of that was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/platforms\/switch-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nintendo Switch 2<\/a>, which held on to its top-selling spot in the UK during the month. Switch 2 sales in the region have been strong, reaching 1m units in a year, 30 weeks faster than the first Switch, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegamebusiness.com\/p\/call-of-duty-at-risk-from-gta-6-ea\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to Dring<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Current-generation Xbox hardware sales have been low in all major markets, registering its worst-ever year in the UK&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-622688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}