PS5 ends Nintendo Switch best-selling streak after almost three years

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Sony has finally ended Nintendo's run in the US

God of War
(Image credit: Sony Santa Monica)

The PS5 has ended the Nintendo Switch's nearly three-year bestselling streak in the US.

According to NPD analyst Mat Piscatella, the PS5 was the best-selling hardware platform in September 2021 (in both unit and dollar sales). That means that last month saw the PS5 "snap the remarkable 33 consecutive month streak that the Nintendo Switch was the market's leading platform in hardware unit sales."

The last time a console that wasn't the Nintendo Switch topped the charts was November 2018, when the PS4 was still on top. A combination of factors is likely to have led to the Switch's impressive run - the arrival of new-gen consoles may have dissuaded customers from buying last-gen alternatives, while ongoing supply issues will have made it difficult for the PS5 and Xbox Series X to top the list.

Interestingly, Piscatella states that while the PS5 is the best-selling console in terms of dollars through 2021 as a whole, the Switch has still sold more units. Back in April, the NPD Group confirmed that the PS5 was the fastest-selling console ever in the US, a feat that it repeated in Japan last month. That should come as no surprise, however, as the PS5 is also the fastest-selling Sony console ever - it took just 248 days to top the ten million sales mark, in spite of continued shortages in supply.

Whether the Switch manages to reclaim the throne remains to be seen, especially with Metroid Dread out now, two Pokemon games on the horizon, and new Animal Crossing: New Horizons content arriving next month.

Still need a new console? Here's our guide to how to buy PS5 stock. 

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.