The PlayStation 5 has finally broken Nintendo Switch's 33-month run of selling the most console units in the US monthly hardware charts.
As per data collected by the NPD Group, the PlayStation 5 has finally come out on top of the Nintendo handheld to become the best-selling hardware platform across the US in September, selling the most units, and making the most money.
The Nintendo Switch's remarkable run shouldn't be understated. Having led the US console market in units sold on a monthly basis since November 2018 when it took over from the PlayStation 4, the Switch's 33-month run has seen it consistently outsell both Sony and Microsoft despite the latter pair releasing new flagship consoles within that time.
While the Switch remains the best-selling console in terms of units sold across the US year-to-date, as of August the PlayStation 5 had surpassed Nintendo's console in terms of dollar sales, and that continued last month. It's quite a feat, given that PS5 has been hit with shortages throughout the year.
In September, video game hardware dollar sales across the US increased by 49% when compared to the same month in 2020. The NPD Group notes that the total spend on hardware last month reached $412 million.
In August, Sony reported that it had secured enough components to be able to sell 22 million PlayStation 5s before the end of the current fiscal year. That being said, the company has still certainly seen its fair share of shortages since the console launched. Alongside Microsoft's Xbox Series X and PC graphics cards, part of the reason that fans haven't been able to get their hands on the latest hardware comes down to an industry-wide pandemic-caused chip shortage.
Estimates on when that shortage will end tend to vary. In August, Intel suggested that the issues could drag on until 2023 – while more recently, Toshiba director Takeshi Kamebuchi said that he thought that the chips would remain "very tight" until at least September of next year. Either way, it seems that it could still be a while before either the PS5 or Xbox Series X become consistently widely stocked across retailers.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.