Xbox only just missed the top spot in the UK Black Friday sales

What you need to know

• A new report indicates that the Nintendo Switch, while down year-over-year, was the best-selling console in the U.K. during Black Friday. 
• The Nintendo Switch was followed very closely by Xbox consoles, which saw strong sales thanks to Xbox Series S promotions. 
• PS5 was in third place for Black Friday U.K. console sales, with the lowest amount of promotions.

The Nintendo Switch was the best-selling console during Black Friday sales in the U.K,  with Xbox consoles just barely in second place. 

That's according to a new report from GamesIndustry.biz, which details how Nintendo Switch took 42% of console sales during the Black Friday 2022 period in the U.K. This is down year-over-year, while Xbox consoles took 40% of console sales. PS5, meanwhile, made up 18% of Black Friday sales for the country.

This tiny disparity between Nintendo Switch and Xbox is credited to Xbox Series S Black Friday deals, which saw discounted bundles readily available throughout the sales period. GamesIndustry.biz notes that all three platforms saw their largest sales week yet during Black Friday. 

Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PS5 consoles have been available in the market for over two years now, and while the past two years have been fraught with supply constraints and console shortages, all three systems are far more readily available now than at any before. This is especially true of Xbox Series S, which is almost never out of stock at online retailers.

While many games in 2022 are still cross-generation titles that are available on the latest hardware while also being built for Xbox One and PS4, this won't be the case for a lot of the games slated to launch in 2023. Titles like the Dead Space remake and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor from Electronic Arts are being built exclusively for the latest machines, alongside first-party games from Xbox and PlayStation such as Starfield and Marvel's Spider-Man 2.