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Xbox Series X|S Sales Top 1 Million in the UK in December, Switch Number 1 Console

Xbox Series X|S Sales Top 1 Million in the UK in December, Switch Number 1 Console - Sales

by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 January 2022 / 6,055 Views

The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console in the UK in December 2021, according to GfK Entertainment. Sales for the console were up six percent compared to November, which was already a big month for the console.

The Xbox Series X|S came in second with sales just behind the Switch. The consoles from Microsoft saw a huge 108 percent increase month-on-month. It is the biggest month ever for the Xbox Series X|S as sales were even higher than the launch month in November 2020. The Xbox Series X|S has now sold over one million units in the UK since its launch. 

The PlayStation 5 dropped down to third place, however, sales were up 28 percent compared to November. It was the second biggest month for the PS5 and the biggest since the launch month.

There were 560,000 game consoles sold in the UK during the month of December and generated just short of £200 million in revenue.

Switch Best-Selling Console in the UK in October Following OLED Launch

GSD data shows that 6.8 million physical and digital games were sold in the UK in December. This is down 12 percent percent when compared to December 2020. The drop is due to weaker sales in 2021's Call of Duty game and last year seeing the release of Cyberpunk 2077.

3.8 million games were sold at retail, which is a 12 percent drop year-on-year. While 3 million digital games were sold, a drop of 13 percent year-on-year.

FIFA 22 was the best-selling game in the digital and physical charts as sales continue to outperform FIFA 21. Call of Duty: Vanguard came in second place.

Grand Theft Auto V was the third best-selling game of the month with sales down about a quarter compared to December 2020. Considering the age of the game sales are still impressive. 

F1 2021 is in fourth place, while Just Dance 2022 is in fifth place. Spider-Man: Miles Morales came in sixth place.

Here are the software (digital + physical) charts:

Position Title
1 FIFA 22 (EA)
2 Call of Duty: Vanguard (Activision Blizzard)
3 Grand Theft Auto 5 (Rockstar)
4 F1 2021 (Codemasters)
5 Just Dance 2022 (Ubisoft)
6 Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Sony)
7 Battlefield 2042 (EA)
8 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe (Nintendo)*
9 Pokémon Brilliant Diamond (Nintendo)*
10 Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft)
11 Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (Square Enix)
12 Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (Mojang/Nintendo)
13 Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar)
14 Riders Republic (Ubisoft)
15 Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo)*
16 Pokémon Shining Pearl (Nintendo)*
17 Mortal Kombat 11 (Warner Bros)
18 Assassin's Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft)
19 LEGO Harry Potter Collection (Warner Bros)
20 Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy Definitive Edition (Rockstar)

* Digital data unavailable

GSD digital data includes games from participating companies sold via Steam, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Nintendo Eshop. Participating companies are Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Big Ben Interactive, Capcom, Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media, Konami, Microids, Microsoft, Milestone, Paradox Interactive, Quantic Dream, Sega, Sony, Square Enix, Strelka, Take-Two, Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Nintendo and Bethesda are the notable absentees, alongside smaller studios.

Thanks, GamesIndustry.


A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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8 Comments
thevideogameninja (on 12 January 2022)

Gaming is alive and well!

At least that is one thing we can count on during these crazy times.

I wonder how much better Sony would have done on the charts if the shortages weren't an issue. I imagine the Series S sales (seeing as how they are lumped in with Series X sales.) have given the overall X box sales a boost in the charts.

Regardless, this is great news for gamers and it shows the community behind gaming is as strong as ever.

-VIDEOGAME TAKEOVER NINJA APPROVED-

  • +5
darthv72 thevideogameninja (on 12 January 2022)

It makes sense to combine X|S sales as they are the same platform regardless of price/specs. XBO comprises the og, the S and the X. Same with PS4 with og, slim and Pro. If those arent broken out individually... I don't see a reason to break out the Series either.

  • 0
aTokenYeti thevideogameninja (on 12 January 2022)

I wonder if 10th generation Sony might go with a big/little hardware strategy like Microsoft has.


Microsoft’s stated reasoning about node shrinks becoming much less cost effective and efficient as time has gone by makes a lot of sense, and it will only get worse from here on out.


I also think with the benefit of hindsight, knowing what we know about the supply chain, Sony might have done it this generation if they got a do over.

  • 0
scrapking aTokenYeti (on 13 January 2022)

With the success of the Series S, they'd be foolish not to at least look at that option really hard.
Anything that helps developers and consumers move more quickly off the old architecture and onto the new one is a win-win-win (platform holder, consumer, and developer alike, in other words). I expect developers would rather write one game and then optimize it for two power level specs, than write two games (one for the current-gen architecture and another for last-gen).

  • 0
aTokenYeti (on 12 January 2022)

Off the top of my head, some launch aligned comparisons for when each console hit 1 million in the UK:

Series X|S: December
Xbox One: November 2014
PS5: August
PS4: September 2014
Xbox 360: I believe it was sometime in 2007

Someone will have to look up the Switch and Wii

  • +1
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JSG87 shikamaru317 (on 15 January 2022)

It's interesting that the Switch had taken the longest to reach 1 million out of all the ones listed.

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