Microsoft CEO Praises 'Market Leading' Sales Of Xbox Consoles In 2022

Keep it up. People are taking notice of Xbox and engagement is up. As soon as they get to that point where they're releasing games every few months, everything will pay off immensely.

This is the long game, and it's never over, so keep up what you're doing.

With the stock shortages this gen this gen could provide the lowest number of sales for over 20 years, both playstation and xbox will be lucky to ship 60-70 million each by the end of this gen. Also he said they were the market leader for "new gen consoles this quarter" which means the switch is still outselling both, so does this mean nintendo aren't having stock shortages like every nintendo fan says they are.

This is good news all round though, good news for xbox as they are gaining some market back which they lost during the xbox one gen, but also for Sony as it should make them pull their finger out their a**e, they don't need to offer say one games but atleast this should make them change their refund policies, add some reward points system, add cloud streaming on android devices, stop charging £70 for exclusives, buy more studios like square and sega, make some decent live service games based on loved franchises like Killzone, go all out on pc by offering exclusives on release, even partner with Microsoft for some deals like bringing Bethesda games to playstation for games in return, and for the love of god remove the fixed microphone sound coming from the controller so I can have it through the tv instead.

Great news and it's obviously selling more as it's the best platform and isn't anti consumer like the competition. Once people realise how good it is they won't bother with the competition.

I certainly won't be paying £70 a game with no fair refund policy from Sony. Especially with rewards points that get me loads of free games on Xbox.

All Microsoft needs to do is get games out at least four throughout the year not just one or two all at the end of the year.

Not that hard considering PS5 is much harder to buy. XSS is readily available in stores. I got my Series X in store 2 week before Xmas 2021.

The Series S was a stroke of genius and its good to see Microsoft providing healthy competition again after a generation that amounted to bad publicity, cancelled projects, studio closures and the only positives really being a backwards compatibility program born of desperation.

Xbox have two great products in Series X and S at two good price points. They also have a great service in Game Pass and have been building momentum since the end of the XBO generation through Game Pass and via a series of pro-consumer decisions.

Due to this they were always going to gain SOME market share back compared to XBO, which was a relative failure, but the stock situation has really played into their hands and made it even more pronounced. Well done Microsoft.

@UltimateOtaku91 the switch uses a tegra x1 apu (arm cpu), designed in 2015, nvidia can make those with blindfolds, extremely cheap to make and uses less silicon. Completely diferent situation. Not that complicate.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think the Switch outselling both is a case of both hardware availability and strong software lineup. Series X|S doesn't have the latter (e.g. yet another drought for the 1st half of the year) and PS5 doesn't have the former.

It has outsold PS5 in that time frame in Europe and NA. I wonder if they start reporting unit sales.

I'll save everyone a reply and say I actually doubt it.

@IronMan30 I think they’ve realized that marketshare numbers are useless from a PR perspective. Only partners like other studios are privy to that information now, so they can decide how much they need to invest on each platform when making a game

I mean Playstation has real stock shortages and sells out immediately. Microsoft paying the bill for chip priority. Hope microsoft doesnt stop the rewards program ever as i havent paid for a single thing this gen

It's fantastic to see this news, they never expected to be number one in console sales, outselling Sony and Nintendo as I understand. It only proves their anti consumer strategy is working, offering Game Pass for excellent games at bargain prices.
And the key thing is you can still buy the games should you wish to. It's the best if both worlds.

Yes they are a corporation that want your money, but they are doing it in a consumer orientated way offering value and services people want.

@Rmg0731 Their is no such thing as chip priority you pay for, you need to learn this.
Any company there is has preferential customers, and they are such due to the size of orders they place, and the facts are Microsoft have larger orders with AMD then Sony does. If Sony was more preferential testament they need to place bigger orders with AMD consistently.

@Kooky_Daisuke PlayStation is king 😈

@S1ayeR74 I agree. I expect that the 'chip priority' that everyone is talking about is actually MS paying upfront for chips that they will require down the line, this in turn causes AMD to send sold chips to MS. MS have simply paid upfront for a product and therefore will take delivery of it ahead of others who have not.

As chip prices fall in the future it could mean that MS are overpaying on some of their stock as they have purchased at a rate that has changed, but it will still be worth it to get 'chip priority'.

@Snake_V5 Alright Mister Ed Haha

@JetmanUK That's still placing orders, it's not paying for 'chip priority', they are not paying extra money just to have a priority position, they are just placing bigger orders, it's common business practice being spun into something it isn't and is actually illegal I believe.

@Snake_V5 Yeah sure whatever.. Man the Sony fans are triggered by this story lol.

It’s good that Xbox is going well as well as the other two. Remember gamers it’s these three in competition that normally gives us the best results for gaming.

@S1ayeR74 I'm only playing 👀

@UltimateOtaku91 if I recall other news correctly: Xbox series X|S is, despite supply shortages, outselling every precious Xbox console at this point of their lives.

Supply shortage or not, Xbox is supply AND demand are both higher than ever.

@Tharsman

It is still surprising me that it's outselling the 360 with a worse selection of games and not having the 1 year advantage vs ps3 during that time, while having the advantage of the ps3 reveal fail.

PS5 really screwed up. They still have the advantage of better games at the moment, but they can't capitalize on that with short stocks. Now when xbox gets its chunk of games, if they're good, sony will have a hard time.

@S1ayeR74 Agreed, that's the point that I was making.

Market leader in so much that Switch outsold it, I'm bemused as to why they deliberately try to ignore the other console.

Thing is for Xbox and PS5, their sales are limited to availability and to which comes out on top but it seems PS5 is more sought-after. Still it's great to see Xbox doing so well given how the Xbox One stalled so badly and its better for the industry to have 3 healthy competitors

@RevGaming both will have some really great games as the gen gets deeper and deeper. Microsoft will have the better services and options it appears and of course controller. But Sony will be plenty fine for games and sales. It’s nice to see more balance between the two platforms outside of the USA, were it’s always more balanced. This is going to be a great gen for us gamers, i am excited to see more this summer. Hopefully a nice showing for both.

@RevGaming I don't think it's that surprising at all. The average consumer will easily go for a series s gamepass combo. I hear a lot of people, even life long playstation fans getting their first ever Xbox (granted as second console but still) because of gamepass. Microsoft made a very smart move to prioritize the series s over the x, especially now they can gain a lot of ground now and got all the positives on their side.
A lot of people underestimate the power of the series s. For average Joe the graphics don't matter as much, not everyone has a 4k TV and the ssd isn't a problem if you play like 2 or 3 games at once at most.
Later on with more games out they will prolly sway over some more hardcore gamers, so I expect a pretty close Gen this time, especially seeing the markets where Xbox did bad last Gen, Europe and Asia, are doing way better than last Gen and are a lot closer.

@carlos82 switch is a 8th gen hybrid console that competes with itself. They don’t make the same product. Nintendo gets to say they don’t compete against the Big 2 in Power and features and services, so why should they get to compete in sales? Now a fair comparison will be Switch vs Steam Deck in the future if Steam deck sticks around and becomes a mainstream product. They are built around the same category idea. I love my Switch and Nintendo exclusives. I own the Switch Oled and a Lite, my kid owns a Lite and my wife owns a lite. So we have 4 switches in our home. We are big Nintendo fans, but i don’t compare them in anyway to my PS5 and Series X.

@Rural-Bandit Yes but I'm talking as of right now.

Deathloop, Ghostwire, Miles, HFW, GT7, Ratchet, Returnal, Demon Souls, Sackboy vs Halo, which is dying and FH5 as their "next gen" AAA exclusive offerings.

Like the only explanation for xbox outselling is the supply. Especially when people have their ps4 library and it would make sense for them to get a ps5.

When it's 2024, the conversation will be another one, but as of today. It is only happening because of chip shortages.

@Lavalera

It's the supply like I mentioned above. You already said it's their second console. Yeah. This gen will be a close one. I expect something like 80m for xbox vs a bit over 100m for PS5, but I wish that only happened because xbox released high end games, not because they were cheap and attracted cheap customers. I hope it's not a Netflix vs Cinema theaters kind of situation.

@RevGaming Deathloop i wanted to play but will get it for Xbox with all the extra upgrades they promised. Ratchet and Clank i bought and loved and everything else has been just so so. Ghostwire is average at best and isn’t selling, Returnal is having a hard time getting to 2 million and likely won’t. It’s a niche game and so is Demon Souls. they are good games but they likely don’t have a big following due to the genre. Spider-man MM was a short tech demo but impressive none the less. Sack boy is again not a system seller but something to play in the meantime and HFW easily the most impressive on the list got derailed by Elden ring. Halo i have 165 hours into and love it, Flight Sim is insanely impressive but not my style of game, Psychonauts 2 was an amazing title but not a system seller for series X, Forza Horizon 5 was a game of the year title and is still getting amazing updates. GT7 did more harm then good for Sony, kinda showed that they are greedy with the price hike and then still try and nickel and dime in game. Long story short there hasn’t been much killer content exclusive to neither machine yet. Some good games yes, but the gen is about to really start with God of War and Starfield. I don’t disagree with what you said, sony has for sure used their studios games in development a little quicker, but no real system selling, defined game yet, Xbox is slowly ramping up from what was a bare cabinet leaving the Xbox One gen. As you have mentioned when HellBlade 2 , Starfield Avowed , Fable, etc etc start to launch then we will know who has the upper hand in titles. Sony looks to be focusing on online games again so let’s see how they do with that since the PS4 gen was Ubisoft type games , copy and paste action adventure. Then we will know how this gen is shaping up.

@Rural-Bandit let's be fair, it's on the charts that Xbox exec's were sharing and whilst I accept Playstation and Xbox are closer competitors there will be people who play Switch over the others. The generation argument is largely meaningless and there's no reason to ignore it

@RevGaming if you consider gamepass subscribers as cheap people you should also include average Joe which only plays minecraft fifa fortnite or war zone on a console (which is the majority of gamers). Sure Xbox needs to have more exclusives and they working hard on them, but I have no doubt games like starfield, hellblade 2 avowed and such all are going to be successful. For me the only Sony game this generation that made it worthwhile to buy my ps5 was horizon. It's not like all games they release are for everyone either. Just like rural explained above.

@Lavalera He's just hurt, poor fella. Consider that the Xbox is doing so well despite poorer advertising when compared to both of the competitors, fewer exclusives, fewer current gen only games, as yet no substantial releases from their acquisitions aside from Psychonauts 2 which is already on other platforms and the poor perception the brand had to endure for seven straight years, and you see this is no miracle.

I regularly look at the storefronts of all three consoles, and hardly is there a game worth buying, but you're telling me I can play some games with minimal risk just by sacrificing my Netflix subscription? Sure thing.

@carlos82 Handhelds such as the DS and Gameboy were on there too, it’s called sales metrics for a reason. Apple has sales sheets with Apple Watch and Mac Sales on it, but they are intended to be used and sold differently. Switch isn’t exactly a handheld now as it’s a hybrid. But again they are doing their own thing, cause it’s different and it works for them. If Nintendo is feeling good about themselves and wants to compete head on with MS and Sony again , I’m all for it, but we already know the end result isn’t good for them like having that second companion system like a switch. I am very happy for the switch success, but they compete with themselves at this point. Which is a smart move and seems to be paying off minus the Wii-u years.

@Royalblues ikr lol. A lot of Sony only fans like to tell themselves that it's only due to chip shortages instead of the actual smart business decisions ms made combined with the shortages.

@RevGaming they do have tons of games. Anyone that has never owned an Xbox before has a giant catalog of exclusives. There is also a beefy library of games you can’t play on any other console if you skipped the entire Xbox one generation.

And of course: the lure of Game Pass is big. Regardless how any given person feels about it, playing games like Forza 5, Halo Infinite and Flight Simulator for free day one is a big allure. Add to add some big day one third party games, and nearly the entire EA back catalog (anything over one year) and there is tons to play with little investment. So I’m not surprised by the sudden Xbox demand this generation.

Edit: there is also the series S on top of all I noted. Cheap, good enough for a big chunk of the player base, and it is not a giagantic monolith. I actually seen non-hardcore players say they have zero interest in either the XSX or the PS5 due to their gargantuan size, but the XSS (plus game pass) is perfect.

Also remember the majority of games sold on any console are third party games, not the first party exclusives (unless you are Nintendo, that is…) Exclusives might go a fair distance to differentiate the offerings, but at the end, it’s the Call of Duties, Fortnites, Assassins Creeds and sport games that people buy these consoles for.

@JetmanUK Ah fair enough, I see many trying to claim Microsoft are somehow paying extra money for chip priority, as an extra on top of buying chips. Because of the silly rumour.

@Royalblues You're the one that had the mienfoo avatar right? Didn't you just try to stir the pot on pushsquare's article about this topic? I'm just saying it's due to stock. Again. Stop jumping to conclusions about how I feel. Consider being ignored.

@Lavalera Not really. They are the whales for those games. I never said anything about upcoming games. I meant as of today and the current sales.

@Tharsman what catalogue of exclusives? Lets be honest. For 3 straight gens, the only memorable ips xbox has had are forza, gears and halo. It's still is btw (Today, April 27 of 2022). Starfield will be the start of a change and I am super glad it's turning out to be that way. I'm not saying there isn't demand or a higher demand. I am just saying it beat ps5 because of stock.

I am not really getting into if the exclusives sell consoles. There are multiple factors where having the best exclusives matters a lot. Nintendo is not an exception. It's the clear answer that they matter.

@Rural-Bandit

We gotta try to be a bit more objective here. Gt7 didn't do more harm than good. It's selling very well. My friends are asking me if they should buy it. It's doing something. Gt sport was worse and it sold over 10m. The rest of the games, well you just don't like, but that doesn't mean neither have really have offered great games. Maybe for you it hasn't, but for me, I would have basically half of the games I have bought this gen without sony games. Ps5 has the clear upperhand with games and I'm being objectively here. Metacritic publisher doesn't mean much. You can put out a 90 rated game and the other can put out 5 85 and the first one would win. It doesn't say the scale of those games either. Doesn't say if they were exclusives (Psychonauts and Deathloop).

Idk why you brought game sales. Microsoft can't even get to 10m with their most famous IP, much less with the others.

Ubisoft wishes it could do what Sony does. Or What Capcom, Rockstar, Fromsoftware does

Yes Xbox is being more "pro consumer" than sony atm, but when it comes to games, as of today, I don't believe anyone who says xbox has as equally good exclusive games. In 2021, yes, equally as good, but I'm counting nov 2020 games and the ones that came this year too for this perspective

@RevGaming if you are stuck in “halo/Forza” even when I mentioned a third title already, I’m not sure why you even visit this site.

Like them or not, there is a nice library of games across all the gens that are exclusive to Xbox. Fable, Gears of War, Crackdown, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Ryse of Rome and many more.

@Tharsman

Is the third title Gears?

So... halo, gears and forza?

I'm just messing with you but it's the truth. That's changing and that's why I'm here.

@RevGaming flight sim

@RevGaming You can ignore me, that's fine. You never have anything to add to any discussions around here, and actively take away from the goodwill being shared on this site. You are obviously in some harsh feelings, which is why you demonstrate the need to keep being negative here when there is clearly not. And I've ignored such users here. I've only tolerated you because I don't want to be negative, but by all means.

And find something that adds value to your time.

@Tharsman I'm going to dismiss that one. It's barely a video game for me. Kind of like Detroit Become Human.

@RevGaming when you trying to figure out why people buy stuff, you don’t get to dismiss things you don’t like, unless you don’t really ever want to find out the answer.

Anyways on my previous reply gave you more games you can’t play in any other console other than an Xbox. They might be older games but for someone that never had an xbox before, they are new games.

@RevGaming thats what i was trying to say tho, they aren’t for me and but not evening reaching 2 million sales who was Returnal and Ghostwire for? Like i know i am a picky player at this point into my gaming life, but if they didn’t attach well then my point stands that they aren’t system sellers. I would agree Sony has more games out, tho Microsoft won publisher of the year, many of those i didn’t play. I see people say all the time Halo, Gears and forza like it’s a bad thing but those are killer titles for me and many america players. Forza Horizon 5 is the most next gen racer and laps GT7 in fun and graphics, Soon Forza Motorsport reboot will do the same. GT has lost to forza back in the 360 days and i stand by it did some harm to Sony’s price increase on their 1st party games. I seen many many people complaining about it. My Ubisoft comment in better detail is sony is making assassin creed games with different characters. 3rd person action adventure fetch quests and while yes they are mostly better than most Ubisoft games, the PS4 was a upscale Ubisoft game mechanic machine to me and bored me, PS3 was more exciting for me and i think PS5 will be as well as they have shown interest in being more diverse. Microsoft is just know back to 360 player excitement and they have a strong lead in gaming tech at almost every corner and soon to be unleashing games so i am not concerned for what i will get there, plus it is my 3rd party machine cause PS controllers are either trash or decent but never my favorite. As for the bigger picture of exclusives do they matter? Yes but not if they are games that aren’t wowing customers or myself. Sack boy isn’t taking me away from Season 2 of Halo and that flight sim isn’t taking me away from God of War. I only own a PS cause of God of War and whatever else they make that i want to try. But speaking of trying i ain’t trying returnal and sack boy at $70 dollars when i can play Starfield and Halo at $60 or on GP. Yes I’d pay $85 to play God of War but at the moment i own one PS5 game and thats Ratchet and Clank and even it didn’t sell well which saddens me cause it’s awesome.Again microsoft came into the gen with bare cabinets no doubt, but thats what 3rd party titles are for and backwards compatibly was for and i enjoyed it but heading into this holiday season and beyond there is no excuses for them owning 32 studios. And in closing this isn’t a anti Sony thing for me, Nintendo is regarded as having the best 1st party in many circles and i agree but i still only play and buy 30-40% of them. So even on their platform exclusives aren’t the be all end all for me. Sony lost money on tying up deathloop and Ghostwire, the sales stink for both and both will see more playtime on GP. It’s time for sony to get back to the Motorstorm’s Resistance’s and new IP’s for me to get excited. No more fetch quests and following a fox.

@RevGaming @Tharsman Ori is one of the best Exclusives from the Xbox One and if you play it on the series X its one of the best looking games in 120 FPS mode at that. Sometimes i wish MS wasn’t trying to play goodwill on gamers and avoid the backlash of keeping COD, Diablo and many others in the AB deal, cause you add that to Doom, Wolfenstein , fallout, Avowed, Fable and Starfield and the real question is what does Sony? A controller that hurts your hand and God of War is all that comes to mind. I don’t play Marvel games i watch the movies. I could be negative about Sony but i understand they are my backup console for GOW and a few other exclusives and i am glad they are so beloved cause gaming is all about having fun and buying what suits your play style best.

@Rural-Bandit Both ori are on switch, right? I get the whole is better to play it on the X, but switch has more appealing exclusives atm (and I don't like them that much, not for me). I was just trying to say as of today. The gap for games is big.

I just think that 3 ips for 3 gens is embarassing. I remember the xbox all stars battle royale memes. Now, Glad they acted quickly and listened.

Returnal was never supposed to be a Ghost or Horizon. It was an indie studio making its triple A game. They did a fine job. Shame that it's difficulty affects their sales, but that ain't changing according to the developer. If $70 is too much, they will reduce to $60 again. Let the market dictate if it's too much. If people like paying $70, well tough love.

I think many people have misunderstood me. All I said is that xbox is outselling ps5 because of supply because it's not outselling it with the games. They wouldn't be beating them with the current released games. I never said xbox will never have the games or anything like that. I said as of today, supply is the only reason. Everyone started jumping on the console war bagon.

@RevGaming i got your point and i don’t entirely disagree with it. However my point is Sony’s released games aren’t all bangers that people have bought in big numbers and many people buy an xbox or PS for like 3 exclusives for the whole gen. While FIFA, MADDEN and COD, do the heavy lifting. Also many as you have probably seen on this site have said this is their first time with Xbox or they are joining Xbox again since 360 cause they like the strategy xbox is doing better than PS5. I know you know the big titles are coming out soon for Xbox and you more than likely will buy a Series X for them. But 3rd party titles are still the heavy lifting for PS and Xbox, with a few exclusives really shining here and there. Gamepass is a system selling service and will get way better when the first party titles come out cause more casual players will get to try them for a price they can justify, Sony charging $70 a title might slow down how many the non hardcore are willing to try out, so you will see Spider-man sell 30 million and a game like sack boy and returnal at like 1.5 million. I waited on returnal to hit $30 but now that it is coming to their service i will give it a shot. Overall the console’s this gen are very compelling and bring some real differences to think about. Xbox is now here to stay with the focus of Microsoft backing it fully and not a side project. That confident alone will sell many more onto the platform even in the early stages when the games are still cooking in the oven. The real question for PS fanboy’s is what happened to their theory that if MS releases games day 1 on PC that everyone would just buy a PC and not an Xbox. Cause by the growth of the Series consoles it very much seems to be more a strength in strategy than a setback and thats without Starfield, Hell Blade 2 and many others coming out soon.

While I'm sure there are casual gamers who might, the majority of people aren't going to drop $500 on a console just because they can get it now. If somebody wants a PS5 they won't 'settle' for an Xbox Series X/S, especially if they have a sizeable PS4 library built up which can be played on PS5. Stock does play a role but I don't think it's the only factor, MS has done a pretty decent job turning things around from the dreadful start of the Xbox One era. Backwards compatibility, great hardware, Game Pass, all this stuff has put Xbox in a better light. I don't think, when it's all said and done, that Series X/S will outsell PS5 once stock issues are sorted but I do think this gen is going to be a lot closer, and that's a good thing. We've already seen Sony back off some decisions this gen that I don't think it would have during the PS4 days and that's because MS, and Nintendo for that matter, are much more serious competition than back in 2013-2017.