You may or may not be aware that Pure Xbox is actually a UK-based website, and usually it's pretty common for us to spot Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles at large retailers such as Amazon, Argos, Smyths, GAME and many others. However, all four of these (along with others) have a surprising lack of stock following the Christmas period.
This was brought to our attention by Pure Xbox user OldGamer999, and on further inspection, we've too noticed that Amazon is advertising a delivery delay of 1-2 months on the Xbox Series X, for example, and Smyths has no Xbox Series S stock at all. GAME is "running low" on the Series X and has no Series S stock right now either.
Here are a couple of examples from Currys and Smyths:
Now, before we get too doom and gloom, it's important to note that the situation isn't critical. The Microsoft Store still has stock of the Xbox Series X and S currently, while somewhere like the EE Store apparently still has over 50 Xbox Series S systems in stock, so it's not like you can't get one of these consoles if you really want one.
We understand the frustration though, as it's not a great look for so many major retailers to be low on stock entering the new year. Hopefully they'll be able to rectify the situation soon — perhaps they didn't quite anticipate the demand over Christmas — and fingers crossed there won't be any further stock issues for the remainder of 2025.
Have you noticed this? Any cause for concern in your opinion? Tell us down in the comments below.
Comments 68
And there’s still some people here and there claiming Microsoft hasn’t given up on Xbox, it’s time to wake up…
Microsoft's behavior is really terrible. It was Christmas and in Central Europe it was impossible to buy XSX at all. We have huge stores like Datart, Mironet or Alza and even they have no information from MS. It's a shame! 😤
Finally and thank you 🤩
@OldGamer999 you did it you old sonofab*tch, you actually did it.
@Weebleman
Thank you so much 🤣
Let’s hope it’s just complacency on Microsoft’s behalf.
But it goes to show their love really isn’t with Xbox consoles as a business.
Especially in the second most popular Xbox console region the UK.
@OldGamer999 Ooh look who's mentioned in an actual article!!
Don't forget us little people now!
Same problem here in Ireland no stock of any new Xbox consoles anywhere I've searched wonder why considering they literally only launched a couple of new versions of series s/x consoles recently!!
@OldGamer999 congrats buddy 🤣 amazing to see this article!
@IOI so selling consoles and running out of stock is giving up... Maybe you should wake up?
Right, it’s concerning sure, but there’s stock at the microsoft store, maybe they didn’t expect the demand during Christmas
@donv2135
Dam I forgot these trillion dollar companies don’t employ top analysts etc for this and also can afford to carry some extra stock for these potential sale spikes. Perhaps they forget it was Christmas as it so easy to miss. 🤣
Joking aside it’s not smart overall but let’s hope you are correct.
@OldGamer999 well, we should be aware that no company is perfect, as much as we want them to be, i just prefer we stop and think before we jump to conclusions some users on here would do.
i mean, it’s not like pandemic levels of low stock, so i don’t think it’s not that bad yet.
@GeorgeKal i agree, there’s a reasonable explanation for this, but i understand it’s not a good look on microsoft’s part
@donv2135
Correct it of course isn’t like the chip shortage but that makes it worse, there was good excuse then and the other two were effected as well.
It is pretty dam low in the UK.
You are talking the main big UK retailers including Amazon.
The fact you cannot walk into most of them and buy an Xbox series console whilst all others are in stock does not give consumer confidence. Then try online and get the same result.
There are some about but it gets less and less each day.
@IOI They running of stock because of sales, and that’s your proof they don’t care about consoles? maybe you should understand that how supply and demand sometimes work?
@OldGamer999 to be honest, i am speaking from a american perspective since that’s their main audience anyway, but i understand if it’s the secondary market like you said, i understand the frustration you must be feeling as a fan.
@OldGamer999 also, are you worrying about it because you want microsoft to stick it to sony?
@OldGamer999, i’m sure they’re going to get back in stock, hopefully sooner rather than later, since like you said this isn’t a good look, and i’m pretty sure, that the ponies are going to use this to said that microsoft doesn’t care about their customers
@donv2135 well for starters they obviously sold consoles and things are not so doom and gloom as we re listening. There is also the possibility that xbox os is close and they expect 3rd party xbox console coming soon. Who knows?
@donv2135
"I prefer we don't criticize companies and just blindly accept everything they do."
@TeiGekiLord well, i’m not saying that they shouldn’t be criticize, just that i perfer to have some common sense and be respectful , not acting like a angry fanboy
No problems in Germany. Both models available at Amazon.
@donv2135
Pray tell then, what is the "common sense" in this situation because I highly highly doubt that people here are running out to buy Xbox.
I live in the UK and have worked in Amazon, GAME and HMV when they used to stock games and the Xbox brand has never been popular here outside of the Xbox 360.
@TeiGekiLord well, i understand what you’re coming from, but i’m just calling out the people who say misinformation.
if the low stock lasts for more than a few months, i think we should be concerning then
@donv2135
I want Microsoft never to give up Xbox consoles and also put some dam effort into promoting the consoles and GPU on consoles
And this stock thing is just another sort of lacklustre approach they are taking with Xbox consoles.
Yes i would have preferred a good console battle with Sony and preferred if they had kept all Xbox studio games off other consoles in the main, ok Minecraft and COD being the exception.
I mean Xbox seem to have a good line up now they getting into it and ended 2024 well with Indy. So they are getting in a good console battle position wise like the 360 days.
In understand going to other devices and cloud gaming, which seems way way to early to be main frame system, but they seem to just treat consoles as a, well I guess we have to if we must approach.
I know stock was low in the months running up to Christmas (mainly because @OldGamer999 told us). It's either a positive in that they sold it all for Christmas and struggled to get more, or it's a really big missed opportunity for MS to build some momentum on the back of some solid game releases.
@Weebleman
And that is the good point you make.
A missed opportunity yet again by them to build some momentum off the back of some great game releases like Indy and possibly some good consoles sales over Christmas in the UK.
It’s almost like one step forward, then two steps back for our Xbox consoles.
Off topic but why no one discussing what Valve is doing? i kinda missed it but they are allowing now to install steam OS by 3rd party and apparently working on desktop steam OS.
And I tested steam os on steam deck - its damn good.
The xbox-pc hybrid is actually almost done today by valve and it will also run PS games. Thats crazy if you thibk about.
Steam machine prob can come back if valve subsidizes the cost and if not well you can buy mini-pc from asus, put it under your TV and play almost all PC, PS, xbox games with free online, cloud saves and supporting any controller. All on dedicated OS that get rid of a lot of windows problems. The only caveat is not every game is perfectly playable now, some games like fortnite not supported but again its work in progress and they are way closer than Ms with this
I have way more trust in Valve and personally would buy such solution over PS and xbox
@OldGamer999 good job man, they listened and now its an its own post haha.
Yeah they dont care anymore. Pretty sure we can move on.
I am literally waiting for a moment where they end exclusivity all at one so I can move on to steam OS PC or PS.
Very also has stock currently if anyone needs one right now.
And looking up the product listing reminded me how the price has gone up since the £449 launch RRP. Crazy how it’s £479 now. I was lucky to get one before the price hike.
@Millionski Yes the next Xbox device will face some incredibly tough competition from Valve if they can successfully launch a version of SteamOS that runs on desktop PCs and produce a subsidised Steam Machine in the same way that they do for Steam Deck. To say my interest would be piqued would be an understatement.
Microsoft pulling out from the looks of things. My guess is that they stopped production of Xbox consoles for a while to "catch up" to the demand or lack thereof.
@Millionski it is very exciting stuff (maybe not PX related as such), especially as the results show that using Steam OS lowers the TDP. My ROG Ally is great, but outside of Indies you need the damn thing plugged in at all times. Even if you set it to 25w which in theory is hour and a half of turbo mode, the rest of the device and bloatware pulls another 10-15w!
@Coletrain yeah they literally just need to launch their own subsidized steam machine that runs steam OS on the desktop. Most likely I would trade both xbox and Ps for this.
I wonder if sony or MS will want to return back to exlcusives lol.
If steam OS runs even 70% of steam games perfectly that will absolutely dominate any other digital store inckuding psn and xbox.
I noticed all new releases are supported properly on deck.
@Cakefish yeah people are too worried about ps vs xbox whereas bigger competitor is steam and mobile.
PS will struggle too if people see $699 steam machine next to ps5 pro that also runs pc and all xbox games day 1 and requires no subscription
@OldGamer999 you missed his first point that maybe it was actually sold out due to high interest. Series x white with GP is crazy deal for xmass with cod bo6 and indy.
I doubt it but possible.
We should see december sales soon. It will be probably the best indicator of interest to platform. Like if mid gen refresh with games like cod and indy (still exclusive) on GP is not good enough for people than nothing is
For the people blindly trying to say it’s high demand -
https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/01/xbox-series-xs-sales-estimates-show-consoles-lagging-far-behind-last-gen
That’s upto end of November. After CoD. (If you think Indy - no matter how great it is - is bumping sales more than CoD, you are living on cuckoo land)
Yes sales probably upticked a little into Christmas. But it’s more the fact that MS aren’t replenishing Stock levels.
And it’s not just a UK thing, it’s elsewhere across Europe and India and so on.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner lets see the actual december numbers and then we all can surrender and start slowly switching to PS. Seems like good 30% of this chat did already.
Sales have been down every quarter. If there's no stock it's because they aren't making them.
The idea that they are sold out because of insane demand is "they're only porting 4 games" energy and it's hard to even know how to deal with it anymore.
@GeorgeKal Sony sells 5 times as much and yet their console is readily available everywhere globally, why is that? Microsoft, the 3 trillion dollar company can’t afford to allocate more stock in one of the most important regions for gaming and where Xbox used to sell very well?
Seriously think about it because the only answer I can find is that they actively don’t care to sell consoles, they haven’t been marketing them for years and seemingly now they’re not even producing or distributing them even as they launched a new model/revision just a couple months ago, can you say that isn’t beyond baffling and it’s just doom and gloom?
We struggled to find a Series S as a gift to my brother-in-law several weeks before Christmas.
The brand has been disappearing from retailers here (Chile).
@OldGamer999
Good job on bringing it to everyone’s attention.
After seeing your comments about the stock these past weeks, I started to notice that here in The U.S. the only stock I have found in-person, are the all white digital series X.
@IOI yeah honestly I would wait for december sales and if they are disappointing again given new xbox revisions, GP with Indy (which is only available on xbox and pc this holiday season) and blockbuster like cod BO6 then I guess nothing will helps sales at all.
I would still bet on series gen reaching 40M in next several years which is decent though. But seems like next xbox if its a traditional series X like console would the last one. And good question if we even should bother with it.
I d say it becomes risky to be with xbox overall. Library will shrink inevitably due to lower sales. Only go with xbox if you specifically want GP and not necessarily interested in other games outside of GP.
I personally prefer-paid xbox GP until 2027, and a lot of games are still exclusive to xbox. So I am good for these 2 years. After that wihtout exclusivity and proper 3rd party support, next gen seems questionable. Thats if they do traditional console. If they go the pc-hybrid, then I am pretty sure it will be inferior to valve steam os solution thats in the works already and we can see how good it works on steam deck.
@Millionski yeah, I think MS need to find a way to partner with Steam on future hardware. The major problem is, what's the incentive for Valve when they already have so much reach?
Only thing I can think of is MS providing QA for steam games so that they can be released on non-VRR TVs
@Coletrain no Valve has its own plans. MS already gave them all games day 1 on steam.
Valve is joining hardware race as well as making desktop steam os that will be available on 3rd party. They are becoming the competition that no one expected.
MS could launch GP on steam but it will hurt MS even further. Honestly all their moves will leave without a platform at all and reliant on competiton
I think that MS doesn't see the need to spend money to make consoles that are going to just sit on the shelves unsold. My guess is that consoles aren't selling well in certain areas/markets and supply of consoles is limited so likely the head warehouse has to make decisions on were to send consoles. I honestly don't know what is happening but this is my best spock guess.
They eliminated exclusive games and stopped promoting their consoles. There is no way the console will sell.
@Millionski I’ll be keeping my series S, works great as a secondary/GP console.
But at this point I think MS have just accepted people don’t want their console. There is nothing bad about the X or the S, yet sales are slumping.
Hence why everything is a push for GP subs. Adverts are usually for GP.
I think we will see a lot of improvements to the cloud this year as MS push it more. And move slowly more towards software (while maintaining console sales but not explicitly pushing them)
@Ricky-Spanish Calling this an article is pretty generous.
@jumpin_jeeps I'm a really nice guy 🥴
@OldGamer999 All we really know is that there is a low amount of stock in the UK, but not a lot more. It could be for a whole host of reasons, and we can only speculate if this is for good or bad reasons.
What is clear is it doesn't appear to be a global problem that seems to rule out that they are ramping down production or something more interesting like that.
We already know the UK is one of Xbox's more popular territories outside the USA so it might just be that sales exceeded expectations, perhaps Indiana Jones did shift the needle more than anticipated in the UK, which would be a good thing not a bad thing, right?
What do you think is the cause?
@IOI Sony have misjudged the number of disc drives needed and have been virtually sold out for 3 months even with restocks. The reality is even big businesses get estimates wrong. PS5 Digital was almost permanently unavailable for a long time too until they switched to the slim model.
@themightyant it’s not just the UK, it’s various other countries. It’s just not reported on because the market isn’t big. (Places I’ve read are things like India, smaller EU countries - how true I don’t know)
Don’t forget there was even an article on PX about issues in Saudi Arabia last year.
@themightyant
I’m not totally sure what it is being honest.
All I know is if you are into selling consoles you don’t let this happen.
You carry extra stock for Christmas and use forecasting for continued supply.
It’s not like Microsoft haven’t got the money to forecast and carry a little extra stock.
It’s strange it has happened this year and not last year, especially as Microsoft seem to be moving away from consoles more and putting key games on other consoles.
Or maybe it’s just pure complacency on Microsoft’s behalf and stock will be replenished soon as they didn’t keep an eye on things and had their heads in the CLOUDS ☁️ 🤣🤣🤣
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Obviously I didn't check everywhere but I did check USA, France, Spain, Germany, Poland and a few others on Amazon before posting, they all had stock on several models. Many smaller European countries don't have their own dedicated site.
The only other country I searched and did see a shortage was Italy which also has a higher Xbox percentage. It may be more widespread but doesn't appear to be the majority on my limited testing.
I don't know enough about the Saudi and Indian markets to know what retailers they use and if and perceived shortage is is standard or part of a wider problem.
@OldGamer999 As you said they run on forecasting. Most modern retail is usually a Just in Time (JIT) or Just in Case (JIC) model meaning they DON'T have massive stores of products to fall back on. The downside to this is if you got your forecasts slightly wrong, or sales suddenly spike, you can end up short for a while, first while you wait for restocks, and second while the backlog of sales is caught up.
While it's not a great look, but it isn't the end of the world, it's not like there is no stock, you can still get an Xbox if you want one, it's just limited stock.
Additionally as I pointed out above it's not just Xbox. E.g. PS5 Disc Drive is completely sold out and sells out within minutes of a restock. and PS5 Digital also had this problem for a while here, until the new model.
@OldGamer999 I agree that they should have stock available at all times. Its not start of gen when we had supply shortages.
However, judging on sales by the store stocks and availability wont give you clear picture.
I checked Canada best buy last months - everything was in stock. Now I am checking and black SX sold out, and other variants has only either online option or only store option. That kinda indicates they were able to sell during xmass.
Anyways as we dont know how much was the stock before and after we dont know. I really want to see December sales worldwide. I wonder if Indy and BO6 on GP and new xbox revisions (i saw a lot of interst to galaxy version surprisingly) moved a needle or at least maybe or on par with last year
I wondered why the price of the Xbox series x had a slight price increase in CEX
@Millionski CoD didn’t move Xbox’s. November sales were 1/5th ps5. Which in turn were around 1/3rd of Xbox one sales at same life cycle.
It did most likely increase GP numbers.
Microsoft are changing their strategy because they can't compete with Sony in a traditional sense, they have to change it up and move the goalposts and if they aren't selling consoles then why would they keep making a high quantity of them??
I think these rumors about them putting the master chief collection and gears 1 ultimate on PS5 isn't the white flag people think it is, they wanna give people on that side a taste of what Xbox has to offer.
They can't keep doing the same thing over and over and getting whooped by PlayStation.
If it all works out, then then production will ramp up again and stock levels will go back to normal.
The stock situation for anyone curious
Xbox Series X - available on the MS to order and Argos have good stock levels
Xbox Series X Digital - available on the MS to order for a Feb delivery date, stock ETA into stores is mid Feb.
Xbox Series X 2TB SE - available on the MS to order for an early march restock
Xbox Series S 512GB - available on the MS to order within 2 days - will be back in stores by early Feb
Xbox Series S 1TB White - available on the MS to order for March stock drop. Stores will get a stock drop between late Feb and early March
Xbox Series S 1TB Black - discontinued - 2nd hand purchase only
It's really not that bad, they just sold through the UK stock they over over Black Friday and Xmas. The Xbox is MS's 2nd largest global market in terms of share % vs Sony and Nintendo.
The Xbox fans on this site like to talk more about stock shortages than actually playing games.
Over a month later from this now and series x stock has not been replenished in stores in Smythstoys in Ireland after depleting to 0 about 2 weeks ago. Currys/PC World have also removed the series x product/SKU from their website entirely. The same with website only retailer Very too.
Series x must have ceased manufacturing at this point because if they aren't shipping them anywhere, they can't be making more of them. Its basic supply and demand and a factor in WHY CONSOLE SALES MATTER. Thank goodness they don't though right?
@PsBoxSwitchOwner It makes you wonder how many of the 6.5 million series x owners own a series s too, some even two series s consoles.
The Xbox series userbase is even lower than the actual estimated total series s and x numbers of 25 million because for 4 years straight, most series x owners brag that series s is great and they have one too.
What improvements do ypu mean for the Xbox cloud? Like match PlayStations 4K standard for one thing? And DON'T stream the worst series s version at the lowest res and visual settings to people as the only option (because THAT is the reality of xcloud.... and this is something people myth talk about something Xbox excels at)?
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