Xbox Series X|S vs Xbox 360 Sales Comparison - September 2023

September 2023 is the 35th month the Xbox Series X|S has been available for. In the latest month, the gap grew in favor of the Xbox 360 when compared to the aligned launch of the Xbox Series X|S by 115,481 units.

In the last 12 months, the Xbox 360 has caught up to the Xbox Series X|S by 1.82 million units. The Xbox Series X|S is currently ahead by 2.66 million units.

[jznrpg]

Series S/X is losing to Xbox One this year not just 360. That’s really bad news.

[Tacoboto]

It is. Xbox's failure in 2022 and not having a significant title this year until Starfield, they didn't give new players a reason to invest in the hardware. The Game Pass third party titles only appease current owners, they won't and clearly don't drive adoption.

[DivineHand125]

True.

[Einhander1972]

But Starfield is in this chart and 360 sold still sold 25% more consoles in matching months.

And the industry has technically grown, so if the market was matched XS should be ahead just by the nature of industry growth. So when you analyze it fully you can see how far behind 360 XS actually is.

Look at this chart for comparison.
PS5 vs PS3 Sales Comparison - September 2023 - Sales
https://www.vgchartz.com/ar...

[crazyCoconuts]

So now do they double down and use their massive collection of companies to only churn out exclusives to see if they can turn the ship around?
Or do they go the other extreme and make games available everywhere to maximize their profit while trying to get GamePass on other platforms?

[dveio]

Out of a plain and simple business perspective, why would you build the most powerful console yet and then don't care about units being sold?

I can imagine heads at Microsoft are not enjoying these numbers, at all.

Then again: software sells hardware, always has.

Microsoft had prepared their hardware well. They reportedly we're even confident about it compared to PS5's specs. But they again fell short on their software. Their units numbers would be different otherwise.

Who knows what's still to come, I certainly don't. But after three years into this gen, Gamepass alone doesn't push any additional units to people.

I can't imagine how high the exact amount of billions of dollars must be that Microsoft has already put into their Xbox Gaming Division, only to hold up against Playstation. Bonkers.

[andy85]

Tbf they probably did care originally, but the gens lost heavily now. But it's not about console power that sells a console so that most powerful tagline did nothing, it's constantly delivering quality over the years and not smoke and mirrors. They're just lucky the PS had massive stock issues so they got a decent amount sold in the beginning.

[DivineHand125]

This is an unfortunate hurdle Xbox can't seem to overcome. The series X is an amazing console but as good as it is, if someone came to be and said "I can only have one console which would you recommend" I can't in good concence even suggest the Xbox brand because it is lacking in exclusives and there is no incentive for playing 3rd party games there over a PS5.

[crazyCoconuts]

Also the fact that the PS5 controllers are so much more advanced and there's no path to VR with Xbox...

[TiredGamer]

You are missing the forest for the trees. Despite the fact that the XBox is in last place, it’s still selling a heck of a lot of consoles and there’s money to be made. And the console is a flagship advertisement for GamePass no matter what. Kind of like how the Surface lineup of computers don’t compete anywhere near to Apple in sales, but still bring in revenue and keep the hardware brand awareness alive. MS will eventually go platform agnostic with GamePass, but they might continue to design and sell consoles if it makes them enough money and as long as the hardware economics formula is positive.

[crazyCoconuts]

That's a great point. Don't need to be winning to make some money. That may also mean they focus less on exclusives if they're not making a big difference in console sales

[ironmonkey]

cant even beat itself