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Xbox Series X/S consoles continue to sell at a record pace, Microsoft has claimed

All the major players in games and entertainment are doing big numbers. Mobile, switch, PS and Xbox. It's a great thing for the variety of games and investment we'll see this generation for both players and the dev industry alike. I wonder if a Series S hardware refresh could push into the realms of a handheld?
 

Ozriel

M$FT
This is topic about sales. I want to know what are the sales, simple. Otherwise this is just a PR statement that can be wrong or misleading.

Why even defend such insincerity by MS? Others can release sales numbers of their products, it's totally normal, why MS can't and what is the point of defending that?

Why are you defending the fact that you don’t know what an interview is?

Why are you desperately defending your strange belief that any console maker would release sales numbers during an interview?


a thread about sales doesn’t have to include raw sales numbers.
 

reksveks

Member
Otherwise this is just a PR statement that can be wrong or misleading
Wrong? No
Misleading? Maybe but that depends on what you take out of the statement

I have already had the discussion about how there is a fundamental difference between the Microsoft and the other two companies about % of revenue and profit that is assigned to their gaming division and how that gives Microsoft the way to not give as much information to investors.
 

skit_data

Member
They didn’t launch their consoles all over the globe simultaneously before either so it would be pretty disappointing if they didn’t sell faster.

Then again, it’s all about production in these days.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I've never seen a Series X in stock, but I've seen tons of Series S in every store. Some with huge discounts.

It will be interesting to see how well they are selling, but we won't know until the end of generation because there's no way Microsoft will unveil any numbers unless they were winning.

I love this post, talking about "tons" (I mean we're talking pallets of them, right?) of series S with "huge" discounts. Link? Pics? Proof of any kind? What magical place do you live where consoles just don't sell?

If you live in Canada or U.S I call total bs on your post. Stores have a steady flow of series S now, not "tons" and no discounts.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
Well let's wait for numbers from MS? If they are record setting like Phil is stating then they shouldn't have a problem revealing the true numbers.

Might as well demand that all GAFfers who claim they’re financially well off have to reveal their bank balances to prove it.
 

Soosa

Banned
Demand is still super high for both Microsoft and Sony. They will continue to sell everything they make. I'm not sure I see that ending any time soon. By the time things might start slowing down we'll start seeing the end of cross-gen and people will need to start upgrading.....
Not the whole truth.

If you mean that they sell everything they can make, like before it hits the stores globally, that is only true for PS5, never heard anybody seeing them on stores yet.

Series S have been available since the launch on many countries, and series x have also been seen on stores around the world (not USA I guess) rarely. I saw 3-4 units on few different cities few weeks or months after the launch.

Series X have been now available on some stores on some countries, like here at Finland Series x became avaiable few days before xmas on the biggest electronic chain, and have been available since on majority of their stores. So, it didnt sell out even just before xmas.

That is how I got mine, just walked in and asked to get one. So, they have been available for 3 weeks now, and they eventually will sell them, but demand seems to be lower than supply now. (here)

And I dont mean not by all means that series consoles arent selling better than xbone, but just pointing out that it is not factually true that they sell everything they make, if that means that they would be sold out globally.

But compared to gens before, yes this is weird situation as it is the first time I remember since 80's that any console is sold out for more than 1-2 months (PS5) and that even xbox have been difficult to get (XSX), because traditionally only playstations sell out here.

I have never bought xbox as new, had OG+360 used but didnt play much.
So xbox have done things better than before, as I would not have even considered to get one before.

And the first time I feel like they are like brothers that can fulfill each other, instead of being like in the movie Twins where one brother is small and weak, and one have every interesting feature :messenger_beaming:

I love this post, talking about "tons" (I mean we're talking pallets of them, right?) of series S with "huge" discounts. Link? Pics? Proof of any kind? What magical place do you live where consoles just don't sell?

If you live in Canada or U.S I call total bs on your post. Stores have a steady flow of series S now, not "tons" and no discounts.

Not everyone live in US/canada, and yes, series S have been widerly available on many EU countries at least + also on (10-15%) discount.

And I dont mean that "I saw one here and then", I mean "walk into a store and buy them almost any day of the week". Now Series S isnt that easy to find vs. before xmas. But both systems s/x are still available on big part of the country.

Yes, USA is the main market, but it gets old when some people talk like there isn't hundreds of countries.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
Well let's wait for numbers from MS? If they are record setting like Phil is stating then they shouldn't have a problem revealing the true numbers.
Would it make a difference to thier bottom line or revenue if do reveal them or keep them under wraps?

How does the actual base number sold being released publicly make any difference?

Other than some people cheering or jeering at it, it doesn't mean much in the overall scheme of things.

The partners and people that need to know, know.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Not the whole truth.

If you mean that they sell everything they can make, like before it hits the stores globally, that is only true for PS5, never heard anybody seeing them on stores yet.
PS5 was available for multiple days at some GAME locations.

I posted the tweets here at the time and I'm not going back to look for them, but it was easily found on store shelves as well, between BF and Xmas.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Not the whole truth.

If you mean that they sell everything they can make, like before it hits the stores globally, that is only true for PS5, never heard anybody seeing them on stores yet.

Series S have been available since the launch on many countries, and series x have also been seen on stores around the world (not USA I guess) rarely. I saw 3-4 units on few different cities few weeks or months after the launch.

Series X have been now available on some stores on some countries, like here at Finland Series x became avaiable few days before xmas on the biggest electronic chain, and have been available since on majority of their stores. So, it didnt sell out even just before xmas.

That is how I got mine, just walked in and asked to get one. So, they have been available for 3 weeks now, and they eventually will sell them, but demand seems to be lower than supply now. (here)

And I dont mean not by all means that series consoles arent selling better than xbone, but just pointing out that it is not factually true that they sell everything they make, if that means that they would be sold out globally.

But compared to gens before, yes this is weird situation as it is the first time I remember since 80's that any console is sold out for more than 1-2 months (PS5) and that even xbox have been difficult to get (XSX), because traditionally only playstations sell out here.

I have never bought xbox as new, had OG+360 used but didnt play much.
So xbox have done things better than before, as I would not have even considered to get one before.

And the first time I feel like they are like brothers that can fulfill each other, instead of being like in the movie Twins where one brother is small and weak, and one have every interesting feature :messenger_beaming:



Not everyone live in US/canada, and yes, series S have been widerly available on many EU countries at least + also on (10-15%) discount.

And I dont mean that "I saw one here and then", I mean "walk into a store and buy them almost any day of the week". Now Series S isnt that easy to find vs. before xmas. But both systems s/x are still available on big part of the country.

Yes, USA is the main market, but it gets old when some people talk like there isn't hundreds of countries.

Specifically why I asked what country they were from. Took a quick at thier posting history suggests North America.
 
It's really interesting how much demand has blown up. I knew that Sony is supplying almost the same number of consoles counting from launch as they ever have, but I didn't realize the same went for Xbox. I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar for GPUs too with demand being higher than it's ever been.
 
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So it's safe for all of us to admit that console sales do matter for Microsoft right? No more of that silly "Microsoft is playing a different game and numbers don't matter anymore" stuff right?
I don't recall anyone saying that console sales don't matter. The XSS exists as an additional vector to get people into the Xbox ecosystem and MS was the only one going with the value console option.

What people were saying was that MS doesn't rely ONLY on console sales like Nintendo and Sony do. There are multiple ways to play Xbox games and console sales aren't the only metric for success for MS.
 

Riky

$MSFT
The big story is not only record sales but the knock on to Gamepass subscriptions, that's going to be massive.
Microsoft has delivered top tier hardware, high rated first party games and incredible value for money services and hardware.
It's a winning strategy for sure.
 

Kagey K

Banned
I don't recall anyone saying that console sales don't matter. The XSS exists as an additional vector to get people into the Xbox ecosystem and MS was the only one going with the value console option.

What people were saying was that MS doesn't rely ONLY on console sales like Nintendo and Sony do. There are multiple ways to play Xbox games and console sales aren't the only metric for success for MS.
I was about to reply with almost the same thing.

I don't think anyone that actually plays Xbox has said console sales don't matter, what people are saying is that consoles are only one part of the revenue stream.

They are looking at increasing revenue and it has become less dependent on console sales as a whole.

Some people want to twist it into console sales don't matter, but they usually aren't doing it in good faith.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
Specifically why I asked what country they were from. Took a quick at thier posting history suggests North America.

They’re in Mexico

Series S has been sold at discounts post-launch…to around $350 USD

These ‘discounts’ started becoming commonplace a few weeks post-launch in 2020, suggesting deliberate moves to scale prices down to more affordable levels given the lower average income.

And still higher prices than the US.

Citing this as ‘discounted because nobody wants one’ is disingenuous.
 
This is topic about sales. I want to know what are the sales, simple. Otherwise this is just a PR statement that can be wrong or misleading.

Why even defend such insincerity by MS? Others can release sales numbers of their products, it's totally normal, why MS can't and what is the point of defending that?
There's nothing insincere about the statement. You're not getting numbers though 🤷‍♂️

Best you can do is try to derive them. Series is now above 10m, and probably close to 11m.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Well let's wait for numbers from MS? If they are record setting like Phil is stating then they shouldn't have a problem revealing the true numbers.

When was the last time MS gave us any numbers? Console sales? GP subs? XBL MAU? They've been pretty much dead silent the past year, and I don't think we will get anything from them unless they hit some significant milestone in either of the categories.
 

Kagey K

Banned
When was the last time MS gave us any numbers? Console sales? GP subs? XBL MAU? They've been pretty much dead silent the past year, and I don't think we will get anything from them unless they hit some significant milestone in either of the categories.
If only one company hadn't blocked NPD from sharing those numbers publicly back in 08 or 09.

We would still get them all. (For North America at least)

Unfortunately after the legal battles were won, and the precident was set. We were no longer entitled to those things.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Really curious about the revenue numbers for last quarter, between the domination on Steam, the new releases and solid console sales it might be a record quarter for MS.
Last quarter was a record quarter for them, of course they want next quarter to be another record (probably will smash all previous quarters) and then the one after and the one after.

In gaming holiday is the qtr to beat, and usually nothing else comes close.

It'll be interesting to see how far the Jan/Feb drops are.

So expect to see a smashing Dec qtr, and then hope the drop isn't too hard after.
 
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reksveks

Member
Last quarter was a record quarter for them, of course they want next quarter to be another record (probably will smash all previous quarters) and then the one after and the one after.

In gaming holiday is the qtr to beat, and usually nothing else comes close.

It'll be interesting to see how far the Jan/Feb drops are.

So expect to see a smashing Dec qtr, and then hope the drop isn't too hard after.
Yeah, everyone in theory should have a record quarter but it might get a bit weird.

I don't know how year 0 holiday (aka the launch) typically compares to year 1 holiday periods so would like to get that information, it should be out there. The other thing that someone mentioned is that the average price of the consoles might have dropped this quarter especially in comparison to the last holiday cause they might have sold more Series S.

So around 10m than? According to Microsoft, the xbox one shipped close to 10m after a year.
Think some on the internet at IBF is suggesting somewhere between 10-11.5m. VGchartz is estimating 11.85m i think.

So if it was ~18.5M vs ~10.5M sell through at the end of 2014 in PS4's favour I'd guess its something like 17.5M vs 11.5M right now.
Is one estimate.
 
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reksveks

Member
nWkI7Lc.png


Personally interesting graph, this is estimated uk hw numbers. The key turning point seems to be year 3.

Shift the x-axis to the left one point.
 
The consoles will sell better than the Xbox One, but the more interesting aspect of it is that MS will annihilate Sony content wise from 2023 onwards. They have 60 projects underway (!!!), 36 teams under 23 studios, and will keep adding developers gradually. In terms of output, it is pretty much over. In terms of sales, however, I think the Playstation will still pull ahead on account of its popularity in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world.
 
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BatSu

Member

Having launched in November 2020, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in July 2021 that Xbox Series X/S were the company’s fastest selling consoles ever.

And in a New York Times interview published on Monday, Microsoft’s gaming boss Phil Spencer said that was still the case.

He claimed persistent Xbox shortages were not actually a result of less consoles being produced than was the case in previous generations. Instead, scarcity has been caused by a surge in demand since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Back in, what would it have been—March, April of 2020—we sold out of consoles, which we never do, in April and May. Because you had this sudden swell of usage,” he said.

“Our networks were tapped as people were coming on. And the team worked hard to fulfill that demand. And in some ways, we’re still trying to do this.

“When you think about trying to go get an Xbox or a new PlayStation right now in the market, they’re really hard to find,” Spencer continued. “And it’s not because supply is smaller than it’s ever been. Supply is actually as big as it’s ever been. It’s that demand is exceeding the supply for all of us.

“At this point, we’ve sold more of this generation of Xboxes, which is Xbox Series X and S, than we had any previous version of Xboxes. So it’s our job to get the supply there to meet that demand.”

d0Wew1i.gif
 

Godot25

Banned
Where do these random numbers come from?
I also wonder
343 will take care of Halo Infinite but they are (per rumors) working on another Halo related project (1)
The Coalition is working on new non Gears game and then it is Gears 6 (2)
Compulsion Games is working on action adventure game - Project Midnight (1)
Double Fine is early at work on multiple projects (2?)
The Initiative is working on Perfect Dark (1)
inXile is working on FPS RPG Steampunk game - Project Cobalt (1)
Mojang is working on 2 Minecraft related games (2)
Ninja Theory is working on Hellblade 2 and Project Mara (2)
Obsidian is working on Pentiment, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 (3)
Playground games is working on Fable and still have Forza Team for FH6 (2)
Rare is working on Everwild (1)
Turn 10 - Forza Motorsport (1)
Undead Labs - State of Decay 3 (1)
Arkane - Redfall and new game from Deathloop devs (2)
BGS - Starfield and TES VI (2)
id Software - probably Quake reboot (1)
MachineGames - Indiana Jones a probably Wolfenstein III (2)
Tango Gameworks - GhostWire and second game (2)
Zenimax Online - Two projects (2)
Roundhouse - wild card (probably 1)
Then you have XGS publishing stuff like Contraband, Project Dragon from IO Interactive, that Wu-Tang RPG game, Project Indus (4X strategy game) (4)
And I'm not including rumored collaboration with Kojima and many unannounced projects.

But i'm still only on 36, not 60 projects.
 

EdGalTBR

Banned
Xbox Series is doing much better than last generations:

Xbox - NVidia GPU price troubles and too many price cuts.
Xbox 360 - 3RL.
Xbox One - Kinect and bad marketing.

Looks like Series life will be very smooth. I believe Xbox Series could get some very nice mid gen refreshes, like smaller consoles, bigger SSDs, digital only Series X, improved controllers, and more. All those things could help to sustain like ~10 million hardwares per year.
 

kingfey

Banned
I think it unlikely. Calm down. Lower your shield fair warrior. This isn't a personal attack. I just don't agree with your opinion.
This is what happens, when you are deep down in the arse with console wars.

There are more gamers than x360. They have 300$ console. They have gamepass. They have entire bethesda. They have old series coming back (fable, perfect dark).

You will be crazy to think, they won't pass 80m.
 
PS5 was available for multiple days at some GAME locations.

I posted the tweets here at the time and I'm not going back to look for them, but it was easily found on store shelves as well, between BF and Xmas.

I literally bought two of them to give away as gifts these dudes are out of their minds lmao PS5 was every where
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Yes, USA is the main market, but it gets old when some people talk like there isn't hundreds of countries.
What are you even talking about? Poster said "IF" you live in US/Canada. That's a conditional statement.
 
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kingfey

Banned
The concerns which I am seeing so far.

1: Show us the numbers.
Tell me, how did that help Playstation? 120m console, and only managed to sell 20+m copies for spiderman. Even, when the price was 20$ on sale. While Nintendo managed to hit 30m on 80m console for animal crossing, at 60$. Spiderman is a big iconic super hero, yet a simple village game surpassed it.

That is how much hardware numbers worth it. If your users aren't buying your big hitter at these rates, your numbers means shit.

Xbox one, with low studio support, with a bad halo campaign game, and bad launch day managed to hit 50m.
People will buy the console, if it has the games they need.

2: Xbox consoles are still on the store.

Duh, dummy. That is how sales work. You sell the products that is on the store. If the product is in the store, someone will buy it. Doesn't matter how long it's on the store. Someone will come and buy it. Compared to being out of stock, and not providing any console to sell.

Last thing, Xbox games this gen, is much bigger than its generation. Bethesda, gamepass, plus all the IP they have, with the total of 25 studios. That is a huge.

Those developers can make more than 50 exclusive games for the console entire generation.
 
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