Xbox Console Sales Down Since Last Year

Xbox Series X|S console sales are down compared to last year, which is unfortunately not too surprising at this point. Overall, console hardware sales has remained fairly flat year-to-year, but it’s Xbox that’s seen the harshest decline.

Recent Circana data shared by Mat Piscatella on Bluesky points out a staggering 29% decline in Xbox console sales year-on-year while competition remains kinda steady, if not better off. In terms of PlayStation, the PS5 sees its sales numbers up by 15% while the Switch is down 3%, probably due to the impending reveal of the Switch successor.

November video game hardware spending was flat when compared to a year ago, at $927 million. 15% spending growth on PlayStation 5 hardware was offset by a 29% year-on-year drop in Xbox Series spending and a 3% decline in Switch.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2024-12-18T14:00:22.007Z

It’s worth pointing out that Xbox is often lagging behind its competition, but with its model of being more widely available, releasing first-party games to competing consoles, the concept of Game Pass as a whole, and other major pivots that make its model less on the hardware and more on software, we can see this not being as big of a deal at Microsoft as it would be to PlayStation or Nintendo.

What do you think? Does the harsh decline surprise you? Let us know below!