November sales figures from Europe make grim reading for Microsoft, as the Xbox is easily outsold by the PS5 and Nintendo Switch.
The Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 are three years year old this Christmas and this should be one of the peak years for both formats, in terms of hardware sales and the volume and popularity of new releases.
It’s not really worked out like that though, particularly for Microsoft, which has seen hardware sales figures fall since the release of major first party title Starfield. And now, new stats reveal just how bad a Christmas this is proving to be for Xbox in Europe.
Xbox console sales have fallen again during November, putting the overall total for Xbox Series X/S behind not just the PlayStation 5 but the almost seven-year-old Nintendo Switch as well.
The huge rise in PlayStation 5 sales, of 376%, was aided by the fact that the console was in stock for the first time during Black Friday, after last year Sony diverted most of their stock to the US (which in part explains why in November 2023, US sales for the PlayStation 5 decreased by 20% – although all three formats fell by the same amount, with the Xbox also left in third place in its home market).
In Europe, the aging Nintendo Switch, which has had a bumper year in terms of quality new releases, saw sales fall by 35% compared to last year but it still managed to outsell the Xbox Series X/S, which dropped by 26%.
There are many caveats here, most notably the fact that the hardware data does not include the UK and Germany. Xbox is generally much more successful in the UK than the rest of Europe (although not by as much as it used to be), while Germany is similar to other surrounding countries – so in terms of indicating how successful the Xbox Series X/S is in Continental Europe the figures are still accurate.
There are no official sales figures, but based on previous years these percentages work out to around 978,000 for PlayStation 5, 276,000 for Nintendo Switch, and just 54,000 for Xbox Series X/S. The UK would have helped the Xbox total, but the PlayStation 5 is still more popular here so, proportionally, it would’ve made little difference.
Whatever way you slice it though, the results are disastrous for Microsoft, in what should be the busiest month of the busiest year for Xbox Series X/S.
In terms of software sales, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the only major release of the month and GamesIndustry.biz reports it was 33% down (including digital and physical sales) on the previous year’s Modern Warfare 2. It will likely end up the third biggest seller of the year in Europe, behind EA Sports FC 24 and Hogwarts Legacy.
There have been comebacks before, in gaming history. The SNES and PlayStation 3 were both being soundly beaten by the mid-point of their respective generations but ended up coming out on top eventually, once all worldwide sales were counted.
In Europe though it really does seem as if the Xbox is beyond help, with two bad generations in a row and no sign from Microsoft of anything specific to counteract the problems.
Many European gamers have pointed to issues such as poor translations (now done by AI rather than real humans) and a lack of marketing to explain the Xbox’s problems but the underlying issue may not even be specific to the Xbox Series X/S.
As Xbox boss Phil Spencer has suggested, many people became immersed in the PlayStation digital ecosystem during the previous generation and it would take an enormous effort to coax them away from it, something that Microsoft does not seem close to doing in Europe.
The Xbox has always sold poorly in Continental Europe but Microsoft’s answer to the problem has never been any more inspired than the odd FIFA bundle.
The poor performance since Starfield has seen increasingly loud whispers of Xbox abandoning or sidelining its console business, but while one Microsoft exec did hint at a ‘change of strategy’, Spencer has insisted that there are no plans to bring Xbox content to PlayStation or Switch.
Something needs to change though, because it’s clear at this point that, in terms of console hardware, the Xbox brand is becoming increasingly irrelevant outside of North America.
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