EMEAA charts show PS5 sales surge in March 2021

March 2021 was at all times going to be a tricky month in contrast with March 2020. It was the month that the pandemic absolutely hit most areas, inflicting lockdowns and an enormous surge in gross sales for video games worldwide.

March 2020 noticed the launch of Animal Crossing: New Horizons for Nintendo Swap as properly. The sport continued to be a high ten best-seller for your entire 12 months, and continues to be promoting properly at present. It hit at simply the correct time for individuals to have one thing to entertain them indoors while sticking to lockdown guidelines.

Regardless of the comparability, March 2021 was nonetheless a giant month for sport gross sales. Throughout all tracked digital and bodily gross sales, 12.6 million video games had been offered throughout Europe, Center East, Africa, in addition to some components of Asia and Australia. This determine is down by 25 p.c year-on-year, which is barely to be anticipated.

Of those gross sales, digital accounted for 8 million items, down by 30 p.c year-on-year, while bodily accounted for 4.6 million, a determine which is down by 14 p.c year-on-year. That is hardly shocking, contemplating that shops are open this 12 months, and there might be fewer customers desperately scrambling for indoor leisure now pubs and eating places are opening up once more.

March 2021’s largest new sport was Monster Hunter Rise. It reached second place within the bodily chart, and sixth within the mixed chart. Nintendo doesn’t share digital gross sales information, so it’s not recognized how properly the sport offered digitally.

{Hardware} gross sales fared barely higher this 12 months. In Europe and Australia, 554,504 sport machines had been offered, which incorporates the Quest 2 and retro consoles. That is up by 17 p.c year-on-year. The PS5 was the strongest promoting console although, hitting the most important month for gross sales in March exterior of its launch month.

As anticipated, the Nintendo Swap was the second best-selling console of the month. Although gross sales are down from March 2020. That is all right down to the launch of the extremely common Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The Xbox Sequence X/S had been the months’ third best-selling console.

In equipment, 1.32 million merchandise had been offered within the month. This is a rise of 21 p.c year-on-year, which most likely has loads to do with the 2 new consoles available on the market. Certainly, the DualSense controller for the PS5 was the best-selling accent for the month.

Lastly, 930,000 wallets and factors playing cards had been offered throughout the month throughout these tracked markets. PlayStation High-Up playing cards had been the best-selling playing cards, with Nintendo eShop Playing cards in second, up 56 p.c.

The highest 20 best-selling video games within the EMEAA for March 2021, digital and bodily mixed, had been as follows.