Xbox Series Outsells Sega Genesis / Mega Drive - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 January 2026 / 9,207 Views
Microsoft's latest video game consoles, the Xbox Series X|S, which is part of the ninth generation of video game consoles, has outsold the lifetime sales of the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, according to VGChartz estimates.
The Xbox Series X|S has sold an estimated 34.17 million units worldwide through December 2025, while the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive sold 34.06 million units lifetime.
This is likely the last video game platform the Xbox Series X|S will outsell as sales continue to drop. The Xbox Series X|S needs to sell 15.01 million units to reach the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), which sold 49.10 million units lifetime.
Breaking down sales by region, the Xbox Series X|S has sold an estimated 19.35 million units in North America, 8.50 million units in Europe, 0.69 million units in Japan, and 5.64 million units in the rest of the world.
This compares to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, which sold 18.50 million units in North America, 8.39 million units in Europe, 3.58 million units in Japan, and 3.59 million units in the rest of the world.
Further breaking down Xbox Series X|S Europe sales, the console has sold an estimated 3.28 million units in the UK, 1.19 million units in Germany, and 0.91 million units in France.
The Xbox Series X|S launched worldwide in November 2020, while the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive released in Japan in October 1988, in North America in August 1989, and Europe in September 1990.
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 follow the author on Bluesky.
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Genesis is still a better console tho
I agree your statement is a terrible April First joke. Even if you exclude all first party titles and titles published by Microsoft the Series S/X has a way better lineup of games than Genesis had not to mention it has a vastly superior controller and is more capable than when it comes to no gaming than any Sega console ever made. Heck even a modded original XBox is vastly superior than a Genesis also, so keep on trolling. Besides sports games the Genisis lineup was severely lacking heck even the lineup of sports games would be severely lacking if you remove all the EA games. The only one that needs to try again is you.
Also, I take off my nostalgia googles before I give any of my takes. Not saying the Genisis was a bad console but in hindsight it was nowhere as good as most of its fans say it was. Overall, the SNES was a much better console, and it had way more Japanses exclusives that never made it to the US or other markets than the Genisis had. If you include all those it's not even close to which one was the better console.
Its difficult to imagine myself playing Genesis games in a world where the Xbox library existed at the same time.
And I say that as an avid Sega fan as a kid.
You also gobble on Diaper Cheeto's knob and everything you dislike is "woke" and don't know what pronouns are even tho they are all over the bible. You're take means nothing. Bye.
Haha, this is a response to me not caring about what happened to EA? They deserved it, and so did Ubisoft.
To be fair, I haven't been a big fan of Microsoft games in recent years. Basically all of their studios have declined in quality. But I still think the entire library you can play on Xbox hardware is overall very solid. Same goes for Sony, the quality of their content has declined significantly. It was most evident with Last of Us 2.
Congratulations MSFT on railroading SEGA into 3rd-party publishing, so that you could become a.....3rd-party publisher.
Actually, Sony, and more specifically, PS2 is the cause. Dreamcast sales were breaking records until the announcement of the PS2, after which it went all the way down. MS just capitalized on the available opening in the Market in the absence of Sega. These two kind of sidelined Nintendo who were able to cope with the competition rather well with Wii, not so much with WiiU, but even better with Switch.
Sega was leaving the console market well before the Xbox was even a thing.
Everything Sega did post Genesis was a failure. That's a hard pill to swallow because Sega fans can't accept their favorite company wasn't popular.
Microsoft was a third-party publisher almost 20 years before the original XBox was released since the first version of Microsoft Flight Simulator launched in November 1982. Bonus fact Sony was a third-party publisher before the first Playstation launched also since they published games for the NES, Game Boy SNES and Genisis and Sega CD under the Sony Imagesoft label.
no way, sad won't sell that many more
And it won't come close to SNES. It's still 15 million behind.
More exclusive games for the Mega Drive came out in 2025 than the Xbox
Allegedly. We'll probably learn Xbox Series true numbers some years from now due to a leaked document related to a lawsuit involving Microsoft.
Xbox Ally > Nomad
I wonder what sales of the next Xbox will look like given Microsofts new multi platform strategy??
Wow massive accomplishment
