Diminishing sales indicate Xbox Series X and S won’t be the future.
Microsoft’s latest call claims Xbox Series X sales and Xbox Series S are slowing down much earlier than any other console cycle from the past.
The trend is quite easy to understand because gaming is no longer exclusive to consoles like the PlayStation or Nintendo era. Instead, players can choose to game on nearly any platform of their choice or even a Tesla electric car.
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While it is presumed that Xbox Game Pass sells better than actual hardware as Microsoft intended for so many years, they didn’t reveal the actual number of subscriptions sold in 2022. They did confirm that selling consoles have slumped heavily by 30% which is not only due to the lockdown situation or lack of availability, but also because of games being spread across so many different platforms.
An average laptop or handheld gaming device like a smartphone or tablet is far more powerful these days, almost on par with an Xbox or PlayStation console. While Sony doesn’t reveal so much about their console sales openly, Microsoft said that their Xbox content and services revenue grew by three percent. The main contribution came from Xbox GamePass because of the growing number of first-party titles in it. There were lots of timely exclusives as well which got released on day one allowing players to experience them without paying anything more.
The services do boost Xbox Series X sales and are obviously the future which made Sony reveal PlayStation Plus subscriptions as an alternative. The company further added that the lack of hardware availability and lots of other issues have led to lower sales than expected as the hype train vanished long ago in the past two years. The next generation games didn’t launch as expected which further slumped sales down like never before.
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Things may seem favorable for Nintendo and Sony but as a matter of fact, all major game development companies are under pressure with games being priced at $70. Microsoft blames the Xbox Series X sale slump due to Halo Infinite launch, purchasing many game companies that are yet to launch their starship title and so on. The lack of compelling first-party titles continues even now which may not boost sales as expected in the near future.