Xbox console sales are even worse than thought according to latest estimates

With Xbox console sales still in decline an insider suggests that the lifetime totals for the Xbox Series X/S are even lower than assumed.

Although many companies avoid revealing video game sales figures, console manufacturers do usually update hardware results with each of their quarterly financial reports. Not Microsoft though, as they stopped saying how many consoles they’ve sold back in the Xbox One era and so there are no official figures for it or the Xbox Series X/S.

The closest they’ve got is admitting that hardware sales have been decreasing by double digits for the last several quarters, with Take-Two Interactive indirectly confirming that the PlayStation 5 has sold more than twice that of its Xbox rival.

Current sales for the Xbox Series X/S have been estimated at north of 33 million, compared to 75 million for the PlayStation 5, but an insider claims that the figures are even worse than that and that Xbox’s current gen consoles haven’t even hit the 30 million milestone yet.

It’s estimated that the Xbox One sold around 58 million units in its lifetime, compared to over 113 million for the PlayStation 4 and a current total of over 153 million for the Switch (and 13.56 million for the Wii U). By comparison, its predecessor the Xbox 360, which Microsoft did give official figures for, sold 84 million units – although it still came last in its generation.

The information comes from insider KeplerL2, who has proven an accurate source for AMD related information – the chipmaker used by both Microsoft and Sony.

KeplerL2 was participating in a thread on NeoGAF, which was discussing a claim that the Xbox Series X/S consoles have sold 37 million units. To this, he simply replied: ‘They aren’t even at 30 million.’

He insisted that this wasn’t guesswork and that you can work out a rough total by using a combination of Sony’s sales data and the total number of chips AMD has provided for consoles this generation.

Even so, only Microsoft knows the exact numbers and it’s estimated that the lowest possible number is 21 million consoles and the maximum is 29 million, which is very poor for almost five years on the market.

Is the PS5 sold at a profit?

Interestingly, KeplerL2 suggests that the Xbox Series X ‘should be’ profitable now, after a manufacturing and design upgrade – which often happens to consoles a few years after launch.

At the same time, he suggests that, as far as he knows, the standard PlayStation 5 models are still being sold at a loss and only the more expensive PS5 Pro is currently being sold at a profit.

Although it’s begun to change in recent generations, it always used to be the case that consoles were sold at a minor loss (as usual, except for Nintendo) for all or most of their lifespan, with console manufacturers making their money from game sales and charging a licensing fee to third party publishers.

If Xbox sales are as bad as suggested then Microsoft will be making very little from licensing fees, while Sony will be doing extremely well, as the PlayStation 5 continues to be the lead format for third party games this generation.

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