The UK is traditionally Nintendo’s weakest territory- while the company has often done well there, in general, Nintendo has had trouble replicating its success from around the rest of the world in the UK. Meanwhile, the UK is one of Xbox’s strongest territories- which is what makes this news so interesting.
According to Gfk-Tracker, Nintendo Switch had a larger software marketshare in the UK for the month of May than Xbox One did- Switch came in at 23.8 per cent of the market, while Xbox came in at 21.3 per cent. Now, it is important to remember this doesn’t account for digital sales, and that’s a strong area of showing for Xbox- but this is an impressive result for Nintendo regardless. Their success was buoyed by the launches of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Hyrule Warriors, along with the continued success of Splatoon 2, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The true winner of May in the UK was Sony- God of War topped charts again, and Detroit, with just a handful of days of tracking, charted in fifth place. Sony was the largest publisher in the UK for the month, while Nintendo came in at a close second.
