Russians are increasingly buying game consoles. This is reported by the trading network “M.Video-El Dorado“. According to its data, the demand for game consoles among Russians in the first six months of 2023 increased by 70% compared to the same period last year.
The most popular position among Russians is PlayStation 5 in the version with a disk drive. The Xbox Series X is also a success. At the same time, sales of retroconsoles increased by a third in annual terms. In addition to them, the demand for Steam Deck is currently growing. M.Video-Eldorado started selling it in January. According to the results of April-June, the demand for it increased by one and a half times compared to the first quarter.
Despite the high sales rates of the latest generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles, 50% of disk sales were for PlayStation 4 video games. Another 25% is on copies for PlayStation 5. The remaining quarter was almost equally divided between games for Xbox and Nintendo Switch consoles.
M.Video-Eldorado does not specify, but most likely, all (or most) of the consoles and copies of games distributed by it were imported into Russia as parallel imports.