Microsoft admits to softer console sales than Sony

Xbox One. © Microsoft.

For seven years, Microsoft kept mum about its Xbox One sales, boasting instead about its Xbox Live service numbers. One likely reason is that they paled in comparison to its chief competitor, Sony’s PlayStation 4. Analysts have always placed Microsoft third after Sony and Nintendo, but now official documents submitted to Brazil national competition regulators have removed all doubt: Xbox One sales are half those of PS4. Basic math suggests that Microsoft has sold around 58.6 million Xbox One consoles, well behind Sony’s 117.2 million lifetime sales of PS4 units and Nintendo’s 111.08 million Switches.

However, Microsoft, in addition to beefing up its games portfolio, is catching up to Sony with its Xbox Series S and X consoles, according to Ampere Analysis. Microsoft is waiting for regulatory authorities’ approval of the Activision Blizzard acquisition, a 68.7 billion USD transaction that will usher in profitable franchises, from Call of Duty to Warcraft to Candy Crush.

⇨ The Verge, Tom Warren, “Microsoft finally admits Xbox One sales were less than half of the PS4.”

2022-08-15