Market research on the sales of the Xbox Series X/S has revealed that its predecessor, the Xbox One, has outsold it in the United States.
In comparison, Sony's PlayStation 5 has comfortably sold more than the PS4. The divergence in performance between Microsoft and Sony's flagship consoles highlights the evolving dynamics of each company.
Xbox is now firmly pushing its Xbox Game Pass and cloud-based services with its «This Is An Xbox» marketing campaign. On the other hand, Sony's focus on the hardware in the PS5 seems to have led to its financial success, courtesy of data analyzed by Mat Piscatella.
Through Bluesky, the executive director at Circana shared an extensive report on the «U.S. Video Game Market Highlights» from December 2024, which reported on consumer trends in video game hardware, content, and accessories. Piscatella's report analyzed the cumulative sales of the Xbox Series X/S and the Xbox One, as he commented that the "[X/S]" when comparing each console's first 50 months in US markets. Piscatella adds that through the first 38 months in the US, which would lead up to December 2023, the «XBS trailed XBO by 13%,» highlighting the poor overall salesof Microsoft's ninth-generation consoles. However, these low numbers may reflect an overall trend in gaming hardware sales, as noted by Piscatella: December video game hardware spending dropped 29% vs YA, to $1.1B.
Spending on PlayStation 5 hardware fell 18% when compared to Dec 2023, with Xbox Series and Switch each declining by 38%. Annual spending on video game hardware finished 25% lower than 2023, at $4.9B. @matpiscatella.bsky.social, Bluesky The reduced consumer spending on video game hardware seems to have impacted both Xbox Series consoles, but the lag in sales highlights a broader notion of Microsoft's focus. The disparity between the Xbox Series sales and the Xbox One's was due to the difference in marketing. Xbox One was touted as a necessary system to play games, and for all other entertainment