PlayStation/Xbox/Switch Hardware Battle: 2021 Edition: FINAL RESULTS!

[PAOerfulone]

Week 12 Breakdown:

PlayStation 4: Down in all regions.

PlayStation 5: Up in Europe and Japan; Down in the United States and the Rest of the World; Up overall.

Xbox One: Down in all regions.

Xbox Series: Up in Europe, Japan, and the Rest of the World; Down in the United States; Down overall.

Nintendo Switch: Down in all regions.

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The Monster Has Risen!!!

That's right, Week 12 marks the official release of Monster Hunter Rise for the Nintendo Switch. So, let's not waste any time and get right into that.

Nintendo: With the release of Monster Hunter Rise, Switch hardware as sharply increased to nearly 750k for the week. This boost is obviously a big win to close out the first quarter of the year and would absolutely be a win across the boards... If not for the fact that during Week 12 of last year, we got Animal Crossing New Horizons, which absolutely blew everything else out of the water with sales cracking the coveted 'million' mark. As a result, this is the first week of the year where the Nintendo Switch is actually Down compared to last year. Thankfully, it's managed to build a big enough lead over the previous 11 weeks to the point where it still maintains a roughly 1 million advantage. However, the coming weeks and post-launch legs of Monster Hunter Rise could very well tell us how the rest of the year and this comparison could unfold. We'll see if the 2021 is able to hold off and hang on to its lead, or if 2020 starts to chip away.

Sony: The boost isn't exclusive to Nintendo it seems as Sony saw a sharp rise in PS5 sales from the previous week, with Japan sales nearly doubling the previous week. Japan, unironically, is Monster Hunter's biggest region. Obviously, a tale-tale sign that there is very much an audience for a mainline Monster Hunter game on PS5. Perhaps we will see it further down the road. But for now, it's a split battle this week as all 4 regions were split with Europe and Japan going in favor of the PS5, with the U.S. and the Rest of the World going against it. However, Europe and Japan was strong enough to give the slight worldwide victory this week to the PS5 by a slim margin. The PS4 vs. PS3 comparison continues as it has been, with the one region that may look to be competitive being the U.S. region. While the other regions were deficits in the 5-10k range. The U.S. was barely over 1k. And with the PS3 baseline looking to drop in the coming weeks in the U.S., perhaps this is the one region where the PS4 can actually be competitive.

Microsoft: Unfortunately, it looks like that boost didn't extend to Microsoft. While the Xbox Series is up from the previous week and goes back to its winning ways over the Xbox One '14, that has more to do with more stock than anything else. It actually dropped in Japan which... is not saying much. Speaking of not saying much, the Xbox One puts up another stinker against the 360. It's comical at this point.