PS5 console sold 1 million units – UK monthly chart

According to official stat provider GfK, the PlayStation 5 console has now passed 1 million units sold in the UK. According to GfK, the console hit this target in August 2021, about 39 weeks after it launched in 2020. This puts it three weeks ahead of the PS4, which achieved the same feat in 42 weeks, and makes the console the fastest-selling in UK history.

Given the lack of availability of PS5 stock, the PS4 was actually trending ahead of the PS5 until July, when new stock helped it push past it.

More than 151,500 consoles were sold in the four weeks leading to August 28, 2021, which means that around 1.4 million consoles, in general, have been sold this year so far. This figure is up by a third over 2020.

The PS5 led the charge in August, with new stock helping it surge ahead because these consoles are so highly sought after. The Nintendo Switch was the second best-selling, which is easy to see given how popular it has been since launch. The Xbox Series X/S ended in third place, which doesn’t mean that they sold particularly poorly, they just can’t compete with these other devices.

The DualSense Controller was the best-selling accessory for the month, with the white controller being the top seller, and the PS4 DualShock coming in behind it. The Pulse 3D Wireless Headset for PS4 and PS5 made it to fifth in the chart, and the black and red DualSense controller made up the rest of the top five. An extremely good month for Sony.

632,822 accessories were sold across the month in total. This is up by 9.3 percent month-on-month, but down by 1.2 percent year-on-year. This may be due to the lack of availability for PS5 consoles, meaning fewer people need to buy the accessories that are selling so well.

1.86 million games were sold in the UK during August 2021, up 6.3 percent year-on-year. Digital sales hit 1.17 million, up 13.6 percent year-on-year, and 691,000 physical games were sold, a drop of 4.1 percent. This trend is definitely a hangover from the pandemic, which has caused more people to opt for digital purchases over physical ones.

Nintendo-published games made up 21 percent of all boxed games that were sold over the month, and Switch physical games made up 43.2 percent of all physical games sold. The PS4 was the front-running platform for digital sales, with a market share of 36.4 percent. Ubisoft is the biggest digital publisher with a market share of 19.4 percent.

The best-selling game for the month was Grand Theft Auto 5 once more. The game’s online mode continues to rise in popularity, but news of the current-gen versions of both the single player and multiplayer elements will have helped raise its profile once again.

The top twenty best-selling games in the UK for the month of August 2021 with digital and physical sales combined are as follows.