It’s been exactly one week since both Sony and Microsoft unleashed their next-generation systems upon the world. The PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X|S were hotly anticipated, so much so that it’s been almost impossible to secure pre-order ahead of their respective launches. Regardless, both systems are finally here, and with a new release comes brand new statistics. According to Japanese outlet Famitsu, which was then reported by Gematsu, Sony’s PlayStation 5 118,085 units in just four days in their native Japan while the Xbox Series X|S sold a combined total of 20,534 units in the span of six days.
For breakdown purposes, of the PlayStation 5’s 118,085 units, 14,184 of those were the digital edition. As for the Xbox Series X|S, the Series X sold 16,247 while the smaller digital-only Series S sold 4,287. For those keeping score at home, the PlayStation 5 outsold the Xbox Series X|S by roughly six times the amount of units in that six-day time frame. To put this in perspective, both consoles’ predecessors, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sold 322,083 sold in the first two days and 23,562 sold in the first four days respectively.
While there is a huge sales numbers gap between the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, Famitsu states that this is due to the latter being released much later in their native country on February 24, 2014, whereas the North American launch took place well beforehand on November 15, 2013, which increased the demand for the system even more. PlayStation 5 software sold well in Japan too, with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales leading the charge with 18,640 copies sold while the second-best by just a slight hair was the Demon Souls remake with 18,607 copies.
According to Gematsu, both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S sold out almost immediately upon the pre-orders being first available in Japan, with most retailers apparently resorting to lottery-based sales. As we already mentioned, the situation was very similar here in North America, where both consoles became insanely hard to find before they were officially released. Thankfully, most retailers here have been able to get some restocks for those who missed out on the initial pre-orders, although those restocks seem to sell out right away whenever they’re put up for sale.