Microsoft CEO: Xbox Series X|S Remains the Fastest-Selling Xbox Console Ever - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 October 2022 / 6,676 Views
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in his annual letter posted to LinkedIn revealed the Xbox Series X|S remains the fastest-selling Xbox console ever. The Xbox Series X|S has sold more units to date than any previous Xbox console after the same amount of time.
"We’ve sold more Xbox Series S and Series X consoles life-to-date than any previous generation of Xbox, and with Xbox Cloud Gaming, we’re bringing games to entirely new endpoints," said Nadella.
"In the past year, we’ve made many of our most popular titles accessible on phones, tablets, TVs, and low-spec PCs for the first time. Our Xbox Game Pass subscription service now includes access to hundreds of games.
"And with our planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, we aim to give players more choice to play great games wherever, whenever, and however they want. Choice is equally important to developers, who we want to support with a diversity of distribution and business models for their games. We believe the acquisition will unlock opportunities for innovation and enable the industry to grow."
VGChartz estimates match what Nadella stated. The Xbox Series X|S has sold 17.51 million units through October 15, 2022. The Xbox Series X|S is tracking ahead of the Xbox One by 2.90 million units through September and is ahead of the Xbox 360 by 5.25 million units.
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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All those hardware sales without any games. Better beef up them inventories for 2023.
Who needs games when you have gamepass.
What you talking about ? I can’t play all the 200 Xbox/pc games on gamepass. I just beat a plague tale requiem on day one last week. Next up scorn which is a Xbox /pc console exclusive (maybe timed) have you even looked at the gamepass list?
I have looked at it. I'm sure it has games for some people just not me. The issue is most of the good games it has I've already played. Once their studios start releasing games in a steady rotation it will be better. It's just taking a bit.
Mmm I never felt a need for more rotations but in this case it can be me being happy with the current rotation . Hopefully in the future it increases the amount of games available at any given time . But I will say this I was never a fan of gamepass till last year .
Mmm I never felt a need for more rotations but in this case it can be me being happy with the current rotation . Hopefully in the future it increases the amount of games available at any given time . But I will say this I was never a fan of gamepass till last year .
To simplify; I meant if there are no games then gamepass wouldn't exist lol
But technically yes, Gamepass does need more games or else that's as silly as saying Netflix or Spotify doesn't need to add more content since they already have thousands and not everyone has experienced it all already.
Starfield and red fall are just around the corner. And when activion blizzard is fully in Microsoft control we can expect more. Saying there’s no games is false saying 2022 is a dry year is more correct. Gamepass takes care of that. I just enjoyed the new plague tale day one;)
If its selling well without games, imagine when it has games..
My only issue with this is that the majority of their sales is for the weaker “S”. Devs are starting to dislike the power gap between the X and the S and as we move forward it’s only going to get worse. They should’ve done what Sony did with the power equivalent disc and digital versions.
Developers probably like even less the fact that Sony's still selling PS4s, and cross-gen will likely remain a thing on PS longer than it will on Xbox. Pick your poison. At least the Series S has a modern CPU and an SSD, and that also means that you can run one code base for Series S and X, vs. two code-bases for PS4 and PS5 (if you're going to maximize the PS5). So the Series S compromises there are significantly less severe.
And I don't think it's clear that "Devs are starting to dislike". Devs related to the new Gotham game said something like that, but several other Devs came to the Series S's defence. And Gotham Knights seems poorly optimized on every platform, according to Digital Foundry.
And are you even sure that sales for the S are higher than for the X? I thought that the breakdown hadn't been made public for most regions.
Why would devs not like Sony selling PS4 (and that is a very small number) since they are not obligated to launch games on it? They do release games for PS4 (and would do even if not on sale anymore) because/when they see profit is bigger that way.
On the series S (which I think is just a bunch of BS anyway) the problem would be they being obligated to release on S to be able to release on X (which would be a bizarre complain since most of the Series sales seems to be on S, so not releasing in S would be against themselves, if they don't care about S it would make more sense to launch PS5 and PC only).
I guess S was just scapegoat for their lousy performance since even on PC with CPUs that were much better than even PS5 the game had poor performance on fps.
Yes, the PS4 is selling in small numbers, but that's small additional numbers on top of an already huge install base. The longer the PS4 lasts as a going concern, the longer they'll have to keep catering too it (even if they've long-since stopped supporting the Xbox One, which I think will happen earlier).
Devs aren't obligated to launch on PS4, but the fact that it's a profitable platform will keep games coming on it. And Sony is keeping it a profitable platform longer by continuing to manufacture it. Microsoft helped retire the Xbox One earlier by ending production of it sometime around 2.5 years ago (we don't know exactly when, but it was around the time Xbox Series production began in earnest), which combined with its relative lower level of success will sooner let devs focus on the newer architecture. The Series S being an attractive price point and being more available also helps people upgrade from the One, and will further help the industry retire it.
Series S is the same architecture as Series X (Zen 2, RDNA 2, SSD), so scaling games down to it is easier. Supporting PS4 requires supporting a different architecture (Jaguar, Bonaire, HDD), which makes scaling games down to it harder. Publishers don't have to support it officially, no. But to maximize profit they may feel that they have to, you know?
And we have no idea what the global breakdown between S and X is. Microsoft suggested early on they expected stronger X sales, but that in the long-run the S would be the top seller. But any breakdowns we've seen have been regional, not global, so we're not sure where we're at when it comes to that.
They support PS4 not because of the number of HW selling now, but because the SW sales is still enough to justify making it. When PS4 SW drops significantly they will stop caring about making titles for it.
I agree that it's because software is still selling well on PS4. My point is that the longer Sony sells the PS4, the further into the future before software stops selling well enough on PS4, you know? If we want to retire the old architecture, the first thing we do is stop selling it! :)
Not sure about it, since sales of SW from what I see doesn't have much to do with the HW still being sold or not (as usually the new HW is launched when SW sales start to enter the drop section instead of when HW start to drop in sales, there is usually a few years gap between both). But since we both agree on the core and PS4 is barely selling at all sure shut down the old to let the new thrive.
Whenever they stop telling that we will have a good estimative of where their sales are.
You claimed they only show numbers when they are doing well.. so the fastest selling Xbox and still no official numbers.
Yes, and they are still very far from PS5, and they stopped giving numbers when they had falled behind PS4 last gen.
They where still giving the "fastest selling xbox" even after they stopped giving numbers, and when X1 lagged behind X360 they stopped saying it as well.
This is the fastest selling Xbox ever, they can compare numbers to previous Xbox numbers. But they choose not to. This also has nothing to do with Sony.
Yet you still believe they refuse to give numbers because of console wars.
I don't think it's surprising. IMO, Microsoft doesn't act like a company that's trying to out-sell the PS as its primary goal; increasing subscription revenue is their primary goal. And Xbox is just one part of that (PC and streaming being the others).
You're right that they stopped advertising sales numbers when they fell behind, which makes sense given they're a company trying to put their best foot forward in all things, even things that are secondary priorities.
The first sign I've seen this generation of Microsoft really trying to compete in console sales was indicating they wouldn't join Sony in raising console prices outside the U.S. If Microsoft actually starts reducing console prices, or bundling things with their consoles without a surcharge, then I think they'll really be bringing their 'A' game and wanting to out-sell Sony. I don't anticipate anything like that until after the ABK transaction is done (one way or the other), though.
Yep MS uses the strategy of focusing marketing and message on any cut they can be put as leading (from what I know that helps), so yes no suprise they don't give sales numbers because those would show they are behind (even if doing better), so they will focus the message on the best positive way they can (as would any company do). Reason why I'm not bashing they are not showing numbers, I just want to se numbers for my curiosity and I don't think it is problematic to say that whenever they stop saying it is the fastest xbox ever will indicate more or less a point it trailed behind either X1 or X360.
MS biggest market is still US, so they not raising outside USA can be more for looking good (and well Phil Spencer indicated they may raise price of games, subs, hw, etc) after Holidays.
You still don't get it Don, they aren't showing numbers "Because they are behind" as you continue to claim. They don't show numbers because it's not part of their business model. Xbox has evolved into an eco-system, it's not based solely on platform sales anymore. They are cutting into their own console sales to achieve more customers. Why would they give numbers when they are allowing customers to not buy their hardware if they choose not to? Its different for Nintendo and Sony because they don't have their focus on their alternatives, they need you to buy their platforms, that is their primary goal.
Yes sure, Gamepass was already in place when Xbox 1 stopped sharing numbers after the "almost shipping 10M". And they sure give the exact number of subs every quarter since that is the most important part right? And considering even Phil admits GP is 10-15% of revenue and won't cross the 15% threshold I guess console sales and game sales are more relevant than the number of subs isn't it? Still MS doesn't give any of that, the most they share is the revenue of the department and for individual games "how many people played it".
Remember when Xbox outsold the PS5 one month? Did they show fugures? No.
X1 was meant to be a console built around digital and Streaming ( Power of the Cloud ) did you forgot the original idea behind the X1? It was always meant to be this way, the Series Consoles basically does what the X1 was meant to do.
They made it clear that being ahead or behind wont change them from giving figures.
Because it would be ridiculous to show figures on a single month and then pretend to not care anymore.
And I'm not pretending Series is was X1 was supposed to be. But you seem to already forget that they were releasing numbers when they were close to PS4 to them suddenly stop giving numbers much earlier than GP.
But if you want to talk about the months they were ahead, they were sure to comment and celebrate those few months and say nothing on all the others.
They stop focusing on numbers when their eco system was changing. X1 implemented GP, it wasn't just created in 1 year.
They announced they outsold the PS, yet they still didn't give any numbers which proves the entire point.
Another take: Microsoft moving fewer units outside the U.S. than the competition means they're leaving less money on the table by not raising prices than Sony is, while potentially gaining market share on Sony. Since you don't have to make money on consoles, that makes a lot of sense to me.
Why do you even keep coming into Ms articles?. You dont own a PC, you dont own an Xbox so why??.
Why do people keep coming to VGC who don't own VGC?
Why not?
There are people that say they don't even care about sales but come here daily.
I do own a PC.
You don't own a Playstation but go to several Sony threads.
Point them out?. Id love to know them PS threads i keep going into. Your in every Ms article thats posted.
Eh it's just human nature. People will literally fight you over a football team. A team that would easily leave your city if given enough money but people get into a fight with a stranger over their team. Could possibly end up dead in the streets if your head hits the concrete just right over a game.
