While 2020 was a pretty crummy year for a lot of people, but it was also the year that ushered in the next-gen consoles from both Sony and Microsoft, with the hype and buzz around them peaking during their launch in November. It hasn’t been easy to cop these new consoles, and stocks have been sparse throughout the world, but early 2021 data shows a clear favorite so far.

The folks at GamingSmart crunched the numbers and data, with their sources coming from sites like StatCounter and VGChartz, and have shown that the PlayStation 5 is the clear favorite in terms of popularity and market share, taking 65.05% of the pie.

Here are some of the categories revealed in the study that was published last January 10.

Unit Sales

Currently the PlayStation 5 has nearly double the sales compared to the Xbox Series X/S. This is just a few months after the two next-generation consoles launched so those are some pretty impressive numbers, even considering the fact that supply for both consoles have been very limited due to the ongoing pandemic across the world.

Global Market Share

In the struggle for domination as of the end of 2020, Sony has cornered around 65.05% of the global market shares. But Microsoft shouldn’t be counted out of the race yet as they have been on a steady rise, with gaining 25.29% of the shares in 2018, and 37.41% in 2019. It’s a small increase but a consistently upward trend nonetheless, thanks in large part to Phil Spencer.

Console Popularity Breakdown

While the study highlights pretty good numbers, it also includes an amazingly detailed breakdown of the popularity of both the PlayStation and Xbox consoles on a worldwide scale. PlayStation has become a recognized gaming brand in almost every corner of the world and this map shows just how much each country prefers one brand over the other. The Xbox is no slouch either, as it also has its piece of the pie, especially in China.

Interestingly enough, the Xbox lead in the United States is pretty slim, with the Xbox holding on to a 50.18% lead over the PlayStation. If you want a very detailed breakdown of the console popularity data by country, GamingSmart has compiled a very comprehensive spreadsheet with all the raw data here.

For the Philippines? I think it’s safe to say that we didn’t need any market research to show that the country prefers the PlayStation over the Xbox, but here are the numbers:

Not really a surprise, but it doesn’t make the Xbox name any lesser as there is still a prominent local Xbox gaming community that has been gaining traction thanks to the fantastic performance and consumer friendly features of the Series X like Smart Delivery and Quick Resume.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to a matter of preference, as both consoles have been performing extremely well based on various benchmarks, with both trading leads in terms of speed and performance despite their difference in power. In short, gamers around the world win big as both offerings are equally as good, offering players fantastic gaming experiences for the years to come.

*All images courtesy of GamingSmart