It’s no secret that Microsoft has no dog in the console wars. This has been the case for the better part of the past two decades. But, that doesn’t mean that it can’t celebrate sales milestones. Case in point, the Xbox Series S/X has recently outsold the original Xbox.
As per VGChartz estimates, the Xbox Series S/X, whose numbers, by the way, aren’t technically available to the public, has sold roughly 25.37 million units through November 2023, which puts it nearly a million over the console platform’s progenitor, which has a lifetime sales of 24.65 million units.
Here is a breakdown of the console’s sales per region:
- North America – 13.66 million units
- Europe – 6.99 million units (2.35 million units in the UK, 1.3 million units in Germany, and 0.92 million units in France).
- Japan – 0.54 million units
- Rest of the world – 4.19 million units
VGChartz’s numbers don’t specify how much more Microsoft sold of the Series S compared to the Series X or the other way around, but we can only presume that the Series S makes up the vast majority of the sales. Regardless, the numbers may encourage Microsoft to reinvest in the same set-up for the next generation of Xbox consoles, which might arrive as early as 2026. However, we’re hoping Microsoft doesn’t forget that the Xbox Series S’s “dominance” over its much more powerful sibling is less due to its price and more because of its availability.
While the affordable price tag of the Series S certainly helped, most gamers bought the less powerful console at launch and in the months following it because the Xbox Series X and, most especially, the PlayStation 5, weren’t available for a lot of gamers around the globe. It wasn’t until earlier this year that Sony could confidently say that it had solved its stock shortage problems, taking over two years to solve its supply chain issues.
Then again, the way that Microsoft described the Series X in the past, saying that it’s already a mid-generation refresh, does suggest that they expected this to happen. This implies that the Series X is now the “premium” device while the S is the main console.
With its investment in cloud gaming and the Game Pass, the Series S has become a game-changer for the Xbox platform. Many who were “forced” to buy the Series S early on in the current generation haven’t upgraded yet. In fact, one of the year’s more graphically impressive games, Alan Wake 2, runs surprisingly well on the Series S and runs even better on the Series X.
So far, this divergence from the usual formula appears to be working for Xbox.
Only time will tell if Xbox Series S/X will continue selling well, especially now that the market has recovered and there’s not too many incentives to invest in the platform due to the relative lack of exclusives.
