Microsoft refused to confirm or deny the obvious for a long time: the PlayStation 4 sold more units than the Xbox One.
Microsoft has stopped disclosing Xbox One sales figures as of the start of its 2016 fiscal year, instead choosing to place more emphasis on Xbox Live statistics.
Due to the switch, we have never had official information regarding how the Xbox One does compare to the PS4. It is miserable given the difficulties experienced by Microsoft with the Xbox One’s launch.
Documents (Word doc) provided to Brazil’s national competition regulator (discovered by Game Luster) finally shed light on how the Xbox One generation fared, despite analyst projections continually placing Microsoft in the third position behind Sony and Nintendo.
With more than twice as many PlayStation 4s sold as Xbox Ones in the previous generation, Sony has overtaken Microsoft in the console market, according to the company’s internal documents.
Microsoft has been mum about Xbox One sales since 2016. Sony has likewise stopped disclosing PS4 shipments; thus, the lifetime sales figure of 117.2 million remains unchanged. As a result, Microsoft could not sell more than 58 million Xbox One units.
Furthermore, if the numbers from Ampere Analysis are believed, Microsoft only managed to sell 51 million consoles worldwide. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 sold 85.8 million units worldwide to give you an idea of scale.
By 2024, Ampere predicts, Sony will have built a sizable advantage over the competition. The PS5 is expected to sell over 67.3 million units, while the combined Xbox Series X and Series S sales will only amount to 44.3 million.
In this generation, Microsoft is shifting its focus from hardware sales to hardware sales plus subscription gaming via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
If Ampere’s forecasts hold, we won’t know how well it works until much later in this generation of hardware and if it works even with a considerably lower installed user base than your primary competitor.
