PS5 beating Switch 2 in September looks like Nintendo's price hike, not Sony's strength

Is a six-year-old console beating the hottest launch of the decade a sign of Sony's strength, or of Nintendo tripping over its own feet? Our bet is on the second. The tidy version of the story, "Switch 2 is cooling and PS5 wins on catalog", is partly right and partly wrong in ways that matter.

What the September numbers actually say

According to VGChartz's worldwide estimates, the PS5 outsold the Switch 2 in September 2026. VGChartz also reports that PS5 outsold Switch 2 in the US that month, with PS5 unit sales up 22% year over year while total US hardware unit sales fell 3%. In Japan, meanwhile, the Switch 2 was still the best seller, at 151,166 units.

Keep in mind these are estimates: VGChartz says its figures typically land within 10% of actual totals, and it revises them against official data. A one-month flip is a data point, not a verdict.

It's not a cooling, it's (probably) a price tag

Look one month back. In August, VGChartz had Switch 2 ahead at 873,740 units against 796,103 for PS5. Year to date through August, it was 7.81 million for Switch 2 and 5.46 million for PS5. The monthly margin was slim, and Switch 2 was down about 20% on a year earlier, so this was no runaway. But a console that had sold about 2.35 million more units than PS5 so far this year is not obviously running out of steam.

What changed between August and September? According to Tech Insider, Nintendo's US price increase to $499.99 took effect September 1, 2026. That same report says PS5 had been hammered by its own price hikes earlier in the year: in May, Circana had its US unit sales down 58%, at an average price paid of $672.

To be clear, no source we have links September's result to the price hike. That is our reading, and we think it's the most plausible one. The timing lines up, and the pattern looks familiar: Sony absorbed the pain of its pricing in the spring, and Nintendo may be absorbing its own now. In that version, Sony's console isn't winning because it's irresistible. It's winning a month in which its rival put a bigger sticker on the shelf.

Nintendo's second year has a software problem

There is a kernel of truth in the "cooling" argument, though. The Game Business reported in January that Switch 2 holiday sales in the US were down around 35% against what Switch 1 managed in the same window of its launch year. A senior Nintendo employee pointed to a "complicated economic landscape," higher price points and "the absence of a major Western game."

We find that last point the most telling. Switch 1's first year had Super Mario Odyssey. As of that January report, Switch 2's announced 2026 slate was lacking a comparable first-party heavyweight. Hardware that sells on novelty in year one needs a must-have game in year two. If the library is still short of one, raising the price is a gamble, and September may be the first receipt.

Still, let's not be dramatic. Nintendo said Switch 2 had shipped 23.68 million units by June 30, 2026, and the console is leading in Japan. This is a healthy platform that picked a harder fight.

The holiday season is the real exam

The question we'd put to readers is simple: who benefits if shoppers are price-sensitive and the calendar turns to November? PS5 has a deep catalog and a big installed base, which VGChartz puts at 94.91 million lifetime sales as of August. It doesn't need to be exciting, just available and familiar. Switch 2 needs a reason to justify $499.99.

Our own view is modest: the holiday quarter will tell us whether the September dip was a one-month blip from a price increase or the start of a trend. A single month of estimates can't settle that.

Our verdict

If you're wondering whether to buy: don't read this as "PS5 is the safe winner." Read it as a market where nobody is cheap anymore. Compare actual prices in your region at the moment you buy, and weigh the games you want over the monthly chart. For Nintendo, the lesson is blunter. A price hike is defensible only if a big game shows up to justify it. Until then, the PS5's September win says less about Sony's genius than about how thin Nintendo's margin for error has become.