PS4 and Xbox One vs PS3 and Xbox 360 Sales Comparison - September 2021 - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 November 2021 / 2,523 Views
The VGChartz sales comparison series of articles are updated monthly and each one focuses on a different sales comparison using our estimated video game hardware figures. The charts include comparisons between the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, as well as with older platforms. There are articles based on our worldwide estimates, as well as the US, Europe, and Japan.
This monthly series compares the combined aligned sales of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with the combined aligned sales of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
The 95th month for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is September 2021, while for the Xbox 360 it is September 2013 and for the PlayStation 3 it is September 2014. This does mean the holiday periods for all four consoles are lined up.
Gap change in latest month: 526,948 - PS3 & X360
Gap change over last 12 months: 9,527,602 - PS3 & X360
Total Lead: 3,962,672 - PS4 & XOne
Total Combined PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Sales: 162,954,714
Total Combined PlayStation 4 and Xbox One Sales: 166,917,386
In September 2021, the gap grew in favor of the combined sales of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 when compared to the aligned launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the last month by 526,948 units. In the last 12 months, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have caught up by 9.53 million units. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One lead by a combined 3.96 million units.
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in their first 95 months sold a combined 162.95 million units, while the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have sold a combined 166.92 million units. It took until month 99 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 to sell as many units as the current PS4 and Xbox One sales.
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sold a combined 173.22 million units lifetime. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are currently 6.30 million units away from surpassing the PS3 and X360.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This is one of the most fascinating graphs of VGChartz
Xbox one did not carry their weight here, really dropped the ball with the high price point with kinect as a package. PS4 and X1should have easily won this .
I wanna see the lines cross before the comparison ends.
To me, the main takeaway is that the "traditional" console market didn't really change that much from Gen 7 to Gen 8. On average, 20 million or so new modern consoles per year, effectively a bit more given generational overlap is a thing.
Thinking back, if we exclude Nintendo's consoles (just because they've been distinctly different since the mid-2000's), the combined sales of the Xbox, Dreamcast, and PS2 through 2006 were roughly 150 million. Again, that's a bit more than 20 million per year, given that the Dreamcast came out in 1998 and 1999. Even if we included the GameCube, the annual sales would still be below 25 million new consoles sold per year. In other words, the "traditional" console industry seemingly hasn't grown very much since the PS2 era.
That's not to say the industry hasn't grown at all; software sales in particular grew through the 00's, with retail sales seemingly peaking during the 7th gen, at which point you also started getting digital sales, DLC, subscription services, etc. And of course, the fact that consoles and gaming PC's afre fairly similar nowadays means it's easy to make more games available on more platforms.
Nevertheless, I think it's worth pondering, given how 10 or 15 years ago, I'd have thought that the expansion of markets in new regions (mainland Asia, Africa, South America, etc) would have led to significantly more sales.
This is why I expect the PS5 to not reach 120 million and likely fall short of 110 since the stronger competition from Xbox will prevent it from going further than the PS4 or even reaching it unless this gen grows by a notable amount and after three in a row where that didn't happen it probably won't again.
A complicated comparison each way. On the one hand, the failures rates of both the 360 and the PS3 were much higher, and many people re-bought systems to replaced failed one. On the other hand, the mid-gen refreshes of the Pro and the One X caused some people to re-buy systems too. I tend to think this comparison unfairly benefits the PS360 era because at least with a "Pro" console you can re-sell or even just give away the old one, so many of those found their way into new hands. So the PS360 era will probably be the ultimate winner on the graph, but I suspect more 8th-gen consoles were actually in use simultaneously due to the high failure rate of the 7th-gen.
To the moon and back.
I feel like if it wasn't for chip shortages the 8th generation systems would win this. Sony and Microsoft obviously had to make cuts somewhere to get more PS5 and Xbox Series systems out there. I think it's because of that these consoles got dropped hard.
I feel like the 8th gen will fall just below (like 170 million)
