What you need to know
- Many countries have ordered people to stay in their homes the last few weeks due to COVID-19.
- Game networks like PSN and Xbox Live have seen an uptick in traffic as a result.
- PlayStation 4 and other consoles have also seen a spike in sales across Europe with over 250,000 sold.
People are spending a lot of time indoors lately, and it looks like this has translated to more consoles being sold as a result. GamesIndustry.biz analyzed market data from GSD, which tracks software and hardware sales across 17 territories, and found some staggering numbers of video game consoles have flown off shelves recently.
According to the report, console sales for the week of March 16 - 22 rose a whopping 155% to 259,169. This surge was across the board apparently between Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch with all three systems seeing a massive boost.
In terms of specific countries, Italy's console sales during its first week of lockdown rose 84%, and Spain's rose 66.1% by its second week of lockdown. France's console sales increased 140.6% in its first week as well. Those practicing social distance like the UK and Australia saw sales rise by 250% and 285.6%, respectively, during week 12 of this year.
After the market in Europe suffered two months of severe declines, it appears to have bounced back in the past few weeks according to GamesIndustry.
This comes just several months before the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are set to release in holiday 2020. Microsoft has already stated that Xbox Game Studios is facing "facing unique challenges and constraints" while working from home amid COVID-19, and games like Wasteland 3 and Minecraft Dungeons have been delayed, but the company has not indicated that the launch of the Xbox Series X would be pushed back at this time. Sony has similarly not announced any delays of its PS5 hardware.
