There are other less favourable figures hidden in the report too though. For example, sales of the Xbox One are actually down by 33% versus last year.
This makes sense given the rumours of the next console generation of course. Nobody wants to buy a console just a year before having to upgrade again.
The figures are balanced out somewhat with software sales. Xbox games are selling 5% more and Xbox Live has 7% more subscription now too.
This is no doubt thanks to more consoles being out in the wild in general and the benefits of Xbox Live being more obvious.
There can be no doubt that Microsoft is looking ahead to what comes next.
If you want to break it down to winners and losers, then Xbox certainly lost this generation. However, there has traditionally been a swing between them and the PlayStation in each generation.
While PlayStation 5 has had some impressive details linked, the rumours point to the Xbox outclassing it.
In a tweet, Ainsley Bowden, an industry veteran, stated that multiple insiders have said that the next Xbox will be even more of a powerhouse than the PS5 appears to be.
Given that Sony isn’t at E3 this year it leaves Microsoft to take centre stage and have all the time they need to roll out the details of their plans going forward. This means that all eyes will be on them as they talk about what comes next.
Given the studio acquisitions, they announced last year we will hopefully be seeing a rough idea of what to expect from the launch titles of the next generation of consoles.
It is a great time to be a fan of gaming.
- Xbox
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