Over the past couple of years, console sales remained at a steady pace despite the demand for Xbox & PlayStation systems. While Microsoft’s response to this with the Xbox Series S did certainly favor it last Black Friday, 2022 favored its sibling console more. Overall, this past fall showed to benefit each console: PlayStation 5 was the hot seller on Cyber Monday & Nintendo Switch took the lead on Thanksgiving Day.
However, the latest financial report from Microsoft has shown to be sluggish for Xbox. From the Fy23 Q2 earnings, it reveals gaming revenue is own 13 percent; content and services down 12 percent; hardware down 8 percent. And while this transpired for Xbox, PlayStation 5 already sold more than 32 million units, corporate Sony reports.
Now in a new report from Ampere Analysis, despite Microsoft’s performance especially with its last financial quarter, has gained more market share from both Sony & Nintendo. Comparing 2021 to 2022, Xbox obtained nearly 2 percent more market share as both competitors lost some in the comparison.
However, while a fairly minor victory for Xbox is still remaining to be miles behind PlayStation 5. While noting the sales of PlayStation 5 being ahead of 30 million, Ampere Analysis records official sales for Xbox Series X|S to be roughly 18.5 million. Additionally, the game is to continue to widen between both platforms as Microsoft finds constraints in its console production as well.
The analysis firm does attest that Xbox Series X is in more demand compared to the Series S and sales for its service did at least improve by roughly 5 percent. “Microsoft and Nintendo had a very similar global market share of spending on console gaming in 2022. With Nintendo’s Switch now in decline, Microsoft can match Nintendo’s share primarily due to the strength of its console services business, which generated almost four times the spending compared to Nintendo’s Switch Online services.”
Piers Harding-Rolls, Ampere Analysis analyst continues, “Availability of PlayStation 5 improved towards the end of the year, especially in the US, and global stock has been much more regularly available in 2023. Ampere expects the gap between PlayStation and Xbox unit sales to widen in the first half of 2023, with Xbox Series X only becoming more consistently available in the second half of the year. Nintendo’s Switch ended 2022 with an installed base of 119.5m, surpassing PlayStation 4’s installed base during the year.”
What are your thoughts on the turn of events from Xbox & PlayStation’s performance?
Source: Ampere Analysis
