Current-generation Xbox hardware sales have been low in all major markets, registering its worst-ever year in the UK last year. Fortunes almost turned in May, however, a month when PlayStation suffered a big drop in its own sales.
That’s according to The Game Business host, and industry analyst, Christopher Dring, who revealed that PS5 hardware sales dropped by a shocking 50 percent during the month of May in the UK.
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.
Of course, the launch of Forza Horizon 6 is what gave Xbox the sales push, even if it was only a 12 percent bump. Horizon 6 was released to near-universal critical and player acclaim, and set sales records for the franchise across PC and Xbox, so that boost makes sense.
The open-world driving game, of course, is also in development for PS5. Though it does not yet have a release date beyond ‘later this year‘, it’s expected to sell incredibly well on Sony’s console when it eventually arrives, at least judging by how well its predecessor, Forza Horizon 5, has performed when it came to PlayStation last year. Horizon 5 has reportedly sold over 5 million units on PS5 alone, and was, for a while, 2025’s best-selling game on PS5.
It’s also worth noting that Saros, the PlayStation exclusive released on 30 April, does not appear to have helped Sony’s hardware fortunes. Unfortunately for the platform holder, Saros has not performed anywhere near well enough at launch to be able to push hardware sales.
Unaffected by any of that was the Nintendo Switch 2, 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, according to Dring.
