Beyond their efforts to expand their catalog, for companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, sales numbers will always be crucial data. After all, it is these figures that determine how they conduct themselves in the industry. Although knowing this information is not of general interest, it is still relevant to know the current status of the companies. The report that you will see below is quite curious, as it indicates that the PS4 is still very popular in Europe.
According to the analysis of the GSD firm that collects GamesIndustry.bizin 2023 the physical games of the PS4 recorded a higher sales volume than those of the Xbox Series X|S.
Is it surprising? To be honest, no, not at all. There are several factors that have caused this curious phenomenon.
First of all, of course, There are more PS4 consoles than Xbox Series X|S in homes. Therefore, the number of users of the first platform is also higher. In April 2023 we learned that the number of PS4 units sold was around 120 million…
Furthermore, according to data from the same firm, the PS4 sold well during 2023 in Europe, while Xbox Series X|S sales fell 18% compared to 2022.
The main cause is that the old continent, like other territories, suffered from shortage of Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 last year, so many people preferred to get a console from the previous generation so as not to be left without playing.
Another point that cannot be forgotten, and that destroys any pessimistic theory about Microsoft, is that Most people who buy an Xbox Series X|S do so to take advantage of Xbox Game Pass, the popular subscription service. What’s more, the Xbox Series S doesn’t even have a disc tray, so its owners can only opt for games in digital format.
We can conclude, then, that the GSD report is not trying to convey an alleged Xbox debacle, but simply Sony and Microsoft serve very different markets in terms of the way they acquire games. Many PlayStation consumers have yet to part with physical titles, while Xbox consumers clearly prefer digital ones.
Unfortunately, this type of analysis does not offer us a detailed overview of the true state of each platform, much less Xbox. For some reason, at Microsoft they continue to be very brief when talking about figures around their video game divisionwhich has caused a large part of the sales reports, both software and hardware, to only include estimates.
Of course, what cannot be denied is that, at least in hardware sales, The PS5 continues to expand its advantage over its main rival, the Xbox Series X|S. It is worth mentioning that Microsoft has already thrown in the towel in this battle and its main objective is not to sell consoles, but to attract more subscribers to Xbox Game Pass.