This year’s Black Friday in the UK saw a whopping 167-million GBP figure for sales on total video games, consoles, and gaming accessories sold. That puts it in third place overall for the biggest Black Friday for video games ever in the country. If you exclude the console launches of the PS4 in 2013 and the PS5 in 2020, it was by far the biggest Black Friday to date.
The statistics show that over 80% of customers purchased their games and consoles from online distributors this Black Friday. This matches the figures from last year and is only roughly 10% less than the figures from 2020, when online purchasing was at its height, as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
This proves beyond a doubt that purchasing goods online has now become the preferred method of choice for most consumers. With that said, the physical retail games market also enjoyed an increase in sales of over 20% this year. Almost 50% of this was thanks to console sales alone.
Compared with last year’s Black Friday, sales on consoles rose by an impressive 35%. Although each platform enjoyed relative success, the majority of these sales came from the PlayStation 5. This was partly due to the fact that the PS5 was in such limited supply last year. With this stock issue now fixed, this Black Friday saw a 200%+ increase on the Sony console, compared with figures from 2022.
In regards to the other consoles, the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox Series X/S both enjoyed their second and third-largest week of sales ever. The same is also true for the PlayStation 5, as all three consoles only sold more units during their opening week of launch. This staggering statistic reinforces the incredible success of this year’s Black Friday sales.
Even though the PlayStation can be seen as this year’s ‘big winner’ in terms of Black Friday sales, Microsoft’s Xbox also enjoyed strong sales performances across the UK during the late November sales. As the PlayStation’s popularity continues to increase in many European regions, The UK remains one of Microsoft’s strongest marketplaces overall.
One record that was broken this Black Friday, came in the form of gaming accessory sales. Accessories are always a big seller and this year was no different, resulting in the biggest Black Friday sales ever. The main proponents of this were game controllers, headsets, and more than ever before, VR headsets. VR has been highlighted more and more as of late and this translated into its biggest ever Black Friday revenue week.
In a nutshell, practically every aspect of the gaming market enjoyed success and an increase in sales revenue this Black Friday. As a whole, the gaming industry will be no doubt hoping that this upward sales trend continues well into both the busy Christmas and January sales periods.
