Microsoft rarely chooses to share information about hardware sales these days, but according to the latest estimates from the folks at VGChartz, it looks like sales of the Xbox Series X and Series S might have passed the 20 million mark.
The outlet is reporting that the two consoles have globally sold an estimated 20.26 million units combined so far, with PlayStation 5 slightly ahead at 28.26 million units, and Switch leading the pack with a massive 118.20 million units.
If these figures are correct (or at least somewhat correct), the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S appear to have now sold around 2/5 as many units as the Xbox One did throughout its entire lifespan, which sounds pretty good to us — especially considering the stock shortages that have plagued the current-gen consoles since they first went on sale.
It'll be interesting to see how the 2022 sales of the Series X|S will fare in the UK specifically, as the two consoles have been discounted on various occasions, and it's been suggested that they could outsell the PS5 and Switch this year.
What do you make of this? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments section below.
[source vgchartz.com]
Comments 33
Being honest whatever I say or think about Microsoft, which is normally not good 😂
Well done and not bad considering all things especially in 2022.
For as much talk about "Where are the AAA games?" that's a great number for Xbox. When those games do come, it will be reflected with even more sales.
That is some significant ground made up on Sony from last generations abysmal performance. People like to trash the S, but it was actually a genius move on Microsoft's part to have a low-cost entry option to go with Game Pass. I know quite a few more casual or lower budget gamers who got an S that love it. Now, if they can start getting these freakin games out, that might help them gain more ground.
Not bad.
With PS5 being %40 ahead I have issues with the word 'slightly' as 40% could never be considered a 'slight' lead.
I think the Series S, especially since the heavy discounting has helped shift the platform, so it was probably a good move despite me not seeing that initially!
If MS can actually deliver any games, who knows how many more they could shift!
I can envisage a lot of Switch owners who wanted a next gen machine alongside it having gone for the S at its friendly price point too, really smart move going with the two models that.
Brilliant for Microsoft, well done, and a testament to both the hardware and Game Pass. Good progress.
@Dezzy70 @Lup @Titntin I feel it's a tale of two halves. True first-party has been lacking, especially this year, but Game Pass has continued to be brilliant. Don't think you can discount how much that matters. People want to play good games at reasonable prices and Game Pass delivers that is spades.
To the masses does it really matter if it's first party? I very much doubt it. Most couldn't tell you who publishes what, they just play.
@Titntin True but you have to look where they have come from and the ground they have made up. XBO vs PS4 was 130% (51 million v 117 million) to ONLY be around 20 v 28 million is a brilliant recovery so far, with some bigger hitters to come next year.
Awesome result, given there are very few first party games for it. MS is taking a serious loss on S + GPU conversion combo, but they are grabbing market like there is no tomorrow.
@themightyant
First party games for me should be the pinnacle of game development for that console, in this case the series x.
The game that make you want to buy that console or game pass and join the Xbox ecosystem.
The games that got me into Xbox like gears of war, Forza Horizon and Halo originally.
The games that show what your console and developers can do and produce at the top end of AAA gaming.
So far in two years FH5 for me is the only one that’s done that. Top of its breed on any platform.
Congrats Xbox , I am sure Xbox will win the console war .
Hmm maybe MS really does need Activision in order to compete!
@Dezzy70 Traditionally I agree with you to an extent (see below) and system sellers, whether first or third party, are still really important. But Microsoft is also rewriting the script with Game Pass. Traditional wisdom and rules don't necessarily apply as much as they used to.
Regardless just to examine "First party games for me should be the pinnacle of game development for that console" and "the games that show what your console and developers can do and produce at the top end of AAA gaming." of course this is always subjective, but that's also only ever a handful of games. Look at a console like PS4, lauded for it's exclusives, yet of the top 50 reviewed games only around 8 are first party AAA games and that includes several remakes. The vast majority are the same third party games on Xbox too.
While I like exclusives and recognise their value, I also think it's easy to overstate their importance while they are still relatively limited, especially in an era of Game Pass.
@themightyant whilst it will be far closer to ps4, 2023 going to be interesting now you can get ps5 easily.
very happy with my S so far
@stvevan It will and I look forward to seeing the battle. It's good for gaming and consumers to have these two duke it out. I don't want either company to get too far ahead. A status quo of ebb and flow would be healthy.
@themightyant
Of course they not as common as third party multi platform games.
But I think for me they are best at what they do.
Like FH5, no other open world off and on road racer can touch it.
GOWR, linear ish with some adventure action beat them up game, no game like it can touch it.
Mario Odyssey, open world 3d staged platform, no game like it can touch it.
These are the games I have all three consoles for, not you high on life type games etc.
The games that push that type of game to the top of that particular game type in that specific platform.
I picked one from each platform to show no bias.
Now multiple platform wise there are some very good and top AAA games too, definitely.
I think and like ACV for example and buy those to, but again notice I’m at the top end of the multi platform tree with ACV.
I never touch lower level games I’m always at the top end whatever the console or AAA multi platform or AAA console exclusive.
That’s just my gaming preference.
@themightyant im getting great value out of GP, but i feel @dezzy70 is right. MS needs AAA and fast for it.
pentiment and some indies are great, but that wont get Casuals to sub, look at netflix they added lots of average content and people got fed up. GP doesnt want to go like that.
next years big hitters need to stick the landing, be it first/third party.
@Dezzy70 Totally agreed with @themightyant on this one. TBH I think the "buy the system for that first party game that showcases the hardware" is an out of date mindset relevant to us old enough to have lived the 16-bit and 32-bit console wars. Reality today is a lot of the third party games are the MOST important games, except Nintendo which still lives inside the 16-bit era successfully somehow.
These platforms are just about a lot more than that now, and even at its best, like mighty said, there's really only a handful of such exclusives. And years and generations are now defined more by Elden Ring than by HFW. Despite being a tech hodge podge, game design rather than tech is most important now. Which is a good thing. (Whether or not Elden is for either of us is yet to be decided of course )
What mostly changed recently, though is the switch from very bespoke proprietary console hardware that took the very focused and specific engineering of inside teams to get the most out of it, to more or less bog standard, customized PC parts. The idea of these internal teams exploiting hardware engineering to put more into a game than any third party could get out of it, really just doesn't exist at a technical level anymore. Sure they could squeeze a little more performance here or there, but it's not like the gyrations ND went through to get TLOU out of a PS3, or the wizardry of Mario 64 on that innovative by restrictive hardware. First party is mostly made the same way third party is, now. Overall it's a good thing, it means third parties can get a lot more out of a console's hardware than they used to be able to, and internal studios can focus more on the game design rather than on being tech demos. But it also means the importance of first and third party is mostly gone where there's not much of a visible demarcation anymore. They're all just "game studios" regardless of who owns them, or if they're allowed to sell their game on another platform. Heck with 3rd part exclusivity, we have MLB The Show on Xbox, we have Psychonauts on PS, but we have a Square-Enix game only on PS.....first party making games for competitors and third party locked to exclusivity. Times definitely changed!
Translate the modern to the 16 bit era. Imagine Golden Axe on SNES, Earthbound/Mother 2 on Genesis/Megadrive, and Street Fighter 2 a Sega exclusive! What's "first party"?
I think we're showing our age with the "first party exclusive" thing. We're used to first party being tech demos with software tightly developed around custom hardware. But that era's over except for Nintendo. First party really isn't about being a tech demo anymore, or more to the point the hardware's potential isn't so byzantine that third parties just can't utilize it anymore, they're all on more equal footing.
Plus, playground wasn't actually part of MS when they became the best at open world racing, they were independent contracted by MS (they've since been purchased the way Insomniac was by Sony.) Similarly Insomniac wasn't part of Sony when they made R&C and Resistance for Sony. I'm not sure "first/third" party means much anymore. The year's best games are the year's best games, regardless of who the studio or publisher is, they're all equally capable. (except 343i. They are not equally capable. )
@stvevan
I know some agree and disagree with me on here
Some is good debate some is blatantly fan boys where Phil and Xbox can do no wrong and the excuses turn up.
But let’s think about this the Xbox 360 was the closest Xbox got to ruling the roast.
I know it was a year before the PS3 and the PS3 had a slow start.
But I had friends round playing Gears of war, Halo and Forza and went wow I getting an Xbox360 this week or month. I sold a few on that.
And WHY WE ASK, all because of the amazing AAA Xbox360 exclusives, looking graphically amazing and playing amazing.
It is as simple as that, and nothing has changed.
Hence how the PS4 took over amazing AAA exclusives and a few other things and hence the PS5 leading at the moment.
It’s not rocket science.
HAD HFW and GOWR been on series x exclusive only some how this year.
I know many that would have purchased the series x to play them and a PS5 auto play them.
Microsoft can play Game pass etc all they like but they are not going that far, game pass already drying up on console subscription, Phil said that not me. They need top end AAA games, very good PR good advertising and let’s get some momentum behind it.
And to rest my case.
Xbox back in third worldwide and in every area again, after the little Black Friday stint.
And doing my stock tracking, it’s all very slow again on the console sales front, even series s at £199.99.
Of course no games in the sales charts this week like all of 2022, which gives really bad publicity.
And for the final time Microsoft fix your dam update that messed my HDMI CEC up that had been working fine from day one until you messed around doing that power update the other month, because you had bad press on energy efficiency compared to the other two. So you rushed it out and ducked it up. I forget you have lost all management and quality control since 2021.
You have delayed the signal for the tv too long so it can’t always read it. I even post on your official site and give you the fix and you still don’t do it.
Moan over 😂😂😂
@stvevan I never said MS don't need first party AAA, they do, they are important and they are coming, I just think we overvalue the importance of them here on fan sites and project that on the wider gaming landscape.
I think Game Pass circa 30 million subscribers is testament to how we don't always know what all types of gamers, including some 'casuals', as you put it, want. People surprise us.
Dezzy70 wrote:
Who's to judge what is "top end" or "lower level"? One man's trash is another man's treasure, and all that.
I love the real 'top end' AAA experiences as much as most, but barring a couple each year most are very safe, by the numbers and overrated. I also really appreciate the innovation, especially in gameplay, happening at the other end of the scale. Some of the very best in gaming in the last few years has been indie titles. To me that is absolutely top end, added bonus is plenty of it has been on Game Pass.
Also thanks. So that what is happening with HDMI-CEC. I thought it was my TV. Happy it's not broken, but damn it sort it out MS.
I've got a one x and 1080p TV. I see no reason for me to upgrade yet.
@NEStalgia Agreed on so much. Landscape has changed and is still changing.
And "Except 343i. They are not equally capable." had me rolling. If you like the dunks, and it seems you do, you will probably like SkillUp's roundup of 2022 in gaming. Just watched it and there's more dunking than NBA Jam. It's a really fun roundup of all of 2022 gaming news.
@Dezzy70 One of the big reasons 360 won so big over PS3 for most of the gen had less to do with MS's exclusives and more to do with the fact that 360 was the lead development platform for the industry because it was easier to develop for and port back and forth with PC, and thus nearly all of those all-important third party games looked and ran like garbage on PS3's obtuse hardware, almost always with iffy framerates, low rendering resolution upscaled and an AA filter that made everything blurry. That's the reason I actually bought into 360 to begin with! At the time I was one of those jeering Pony "get Windows out of my gaming consoles" people, until every 3rd party game was a blurry slideshow on PS3 and I finally sucked it up and bought a better machine and discovered I liked it. Still love PS3 more than 4, though...that was the last truly Japanese game focused PS.
PS4 took off because Xbox and Nintendo scored own goals while Sony stayed on the bench. Those famous exclusives weren't even showcased until after the console was already on the express train to monopolytown. The games cemented it and grew it further, but they really already owned the market before the games were even out.
I can't help but think the celebration of "PS4 won because of the big games" is the same folly as thinking "Wii created a new market of gamers via grandma bowling and ignoring core gamers for farm simulators, so those newly minted gamers will buy a WiiU for CoD!" It may be a correlation, but it's not really the right lesson to learn from the experience. Sure HzD and Gears mattered, but the console trajectory went as it did for reasons very much other than those games.
@themightyant LOL I started that video, a little too long to watch through atm, but that's a laugh a minute! If only High on Life were that funny.
40% more sales is not "slightly more"😝🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑
@themightyant
First of all , lets not get too excited! This is VGchartz who have proven since time immemorial that they just make it up, any quick research into their credibility will show they don't have any, and respected sites will not use their data as a result of this. They have been shown to retrospectively adjust their numbers to show better conformity with real published data when it comes out. Take anything they state with a pinch of salt.
"Game Pass delivers that is spades.
To the masses does it really matter if it's first party? I very much doubt it. "
The masses don't even know Game pass exists, it has not a lot of mindshare. I've been a gamer all my life and a dev for 20 years. Most of my friends enjoy gaming, probably more than the average person on the street, yet I'm the only one on GPU.
..and in terms of delivery, it depends what you want. I thought Game pass had a pretty bad year, only saved by a couple of big third party titles and a few indy hits. It may turn heads in forums like this, but its harder to resonate with the general buying public, and Microsoft themselves have stated they cannot get people to sign up to it in the numbers they wanted, so the company believes it is an underperforming service.
I'm happy Xbox appear to be doing well, but I think their delivery of software has been awful this year and one thing they cannot afford to do is have another year of non delivery and resting on their laurels. They are clearly capable of better, and I believe they need to deliver that if they wish to keep any momentum, despite Game Pass. I'm cautiously optimistic for the next year.
@Titntin You are right that VG Charts numbers aren't facts, and yes it need to be taken with a pinch of salt. But it's not worthless or 'made up' either, it's based of industry analysis and extrapolating from data they get from other sources like retailer sales. Is it 100% accurate? No absolutely not, but it's the best we have as Microsoft flat out refuse to give out sales data.
Of course they adjust their numbers when real data becomes available, they would be foolish not to. They are more aware than anyone that their numbers are only a best educated approximation, and rightly fix this retroactively when real data finally is available. That's not a knock on their credibility... it's quite the opposite. Would you prefer them to keep using inaccurate data when real data is actually available?
As for Game Pass, different horses different courses, several of my light gaming friends have jumped on Game Pass and many more have subscribed for their kids, I guess it depends who you know. But around 30 million subscribers is no mean feat and it's still growing rapidly.
Yes you are right Microsoft have failed to hit their Game Pass target two years in a row. But if we look at that more closely the service grew 28% in FY 2022 - a great number that most would be more than happy with, but Microsoft wanted a frankly unreasonable 73%.
That target was artificially inflated because of the massive bump they got during COVID where they hit 85% growth, it was never going to sustain that after. Plus it's harder to keep percentage growth up as service grows, you expect this to drop over time.
It was also made with the expectation that some games like Starfield, Redfall, Stalker 2 and more would launch this year and that Halo hit better. Exclusives and big AAA are important at initially driving sales, but aren't the be-all end-all, it's everything else that keeps subscribers ongoing. It kept growing regardless.
Last 3 years Game Pass subscriber growth figures were:
That's solid growth.
Source: VGC
But everyone agrees that they have to do better next year, and they will, with Starfield, Redfall & Forza and no doubt some surprises. Whether that will satisfy the masses we will have to see.
No point in defending VGchartz methodology to me - its all the other sites and publications that have dropped them as they do not believe the integrity of their data. Any suggestion that you know where they get their data from is disingenuous -
"Sales figures on VGChartz are based on estimates extrapolated from small retail samples."
"VGChartz does not publish any of their data sources."
They do not expand upon this at all, where they poll how many retailers etc, and they have been shown to be way off the mark many times in the 17 years or so they have been going.
Suggesting caution before believing the reality of their figures is the first thing anyone who wants the real facts should be doing.
Personally, I don't pretend to understand the business realities of running a mega corp, if Microsoft themselves state that the service is underperforming and they are looking for better avenues for growth, I'll take them at their word. Its their business and they have all the facts. Several walls of text in a website comments section making huge assumptions about what they want or thought, wont make me distrust their analysis, or trust yours over theirs, but I thank you for your comments anyway.
Great to see from Xbox. Will be interesting to see what the figures are at the end of next year when they hopefully get their games out.
@Titntin That's fair enough, though also to be fair most industry analyst's don't disclose their sources or methodology either on estimates like this, only when there is hard data.
I also think it's important to differentiate between their hardware figures which are usually proven to be within +/- around 5% when data does become available, which I find acceptable, and their software sales totals which I agree are an absolute joke and do seem to be just made up, or non-existent.
Of course logically Xbox would be harder to be accurate as MS never disclose numbers, so they can't course correct their algorithm if their estimates were off. I'll give you that.
I'm not sure I do trust Microsoft, or other big corps, to give realistic growth estimates. Yes they may have all the data, but if you are going to slap a higher growth forecast on this year (73%) than during COVID (71%) then something just isn't right. Not least that percentage growth becomes harder as subscribers go up. You don't need to be working at a megacorp to see that. They are just people at the end of the day, fallible like us all.
Have a good one.
@themightyant Plenty we can agree about then
I would like to think their figures are pretty accurate as a healthy Microsoft keeps everyone on their toes and has to be good for gamers!
I think that some of the bigwigs at MS assumed that the more money they pumped into GP, the more likely the attach rate for the service would go up, which kind of makes some sense? Or maybe they thought they would get a great growth in PC GP, forgetting that their delivery on PC is really poor. I've bought several titles on PC (the cheap ones) through steam despite them being on GP, simply because I cant be bothered to use their awful software. They are certainly fallible
Happy Crimble to you!
Edit - fyi direct from VGchartz "On the hardware front we continue to produce weekly estimates, based on retail sampling and trends in individual countries, which are then extrapolated to represent the wider region. This typically allows us to produce figures that end up being within 10% of the actual totals." So its 10% - and they have given up doing software.
There's many reasons for companies to provide unrealistic growth targets to investors they can't deliver on, and this is a year when most companies severely under-performed on estimates due to economic forecasts and the fact that the "smart people" who run the world seem to be clueless buffoons that get lucky enough to look smart, with none of them understanding the spending in the consumer space at all for the past 2 years. From MS to Walmart to JP Morgan, all of them seemed to think there was an infinite money pool of rising consumer spending until there wasn't and they figured out stimulus was why. I'm glad I'm not an economist, otherwise I'd have no idea how money works.
Oof...those estimates were off by a couple million 😅😅
February 2023 placed them at around 18 million vs over 32 million for PS5.
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