Sales of consoles are among the topics that still make the various communities talk, even if the video game landscape has particularly changed in recent years. But while Xbox has not communicated any more figures on this subject for a long time, Phil Spencer, the boss of gaming at Microsoft, today gives us a serious clue.
The pandemic has changed everything
It’s at the microphone of journalist Kara Swisher, from New York Times, which Phil Spencer spoke today about the video game business as a whole. And if the man does not wish to rejoice in the pandemic, he confirms that the acceleration of business is very palpable since COVID has upset the world order.
It’s hard to say that a global pandemic has been good for business. It’s hard for me to rationalize that way. But what I will say is that there has been a natural growth in the game for decades. Then we saw an acceleration of this growth during the pandemic.
Phil Spencer reminds that the priority has been to think about the teams and to ensure the safety of each one as well as the working conditions in this new era. He adds that the rise of video games at the start of the pandemic surprised Xbox teams who did not expect such a load. He explains that he was out of consoles around April 2020, which had never happened before.
There have never been so many Xboxes produced as today
At the time, the brand’s online network, Xbox Live, was experiencing unprecedented waves of gamers. We had also observed a failure and March 2020 while Call of Duty Warzone had just been released. Phil Spencer says the teams have worked hard to meet this demand, and adds that it is still the case today in a way.
When you’re trying to get an Xbox or a new PlayStation right now on the market, these are really hard to find. And it’s not because the offer is smaller than it ever was.
In fact, the offer is bigger than it has ever been. It’s just that the demand exceeds the supply for all of us. At this point, we have sold more of this generation of Xbox, namely the Xbox Series X and S, than any other generation of Xbox. It is therefore our job to feed this offer to meet this demand.
We still won’t know how many Xbox Series X and S have been sold around the world so far, but estimates were hovering around 8 million last October. With the holiday season, we should be approaching ten million consoles sold today, a figure Sony hit with its PS5 last summer.
Phil Spencer can therefore both rejoice in the craze for Xbox consoles, but also regret that the supply still cannot meet the demand which remains strong today. We have been monitoring stocks de Xbox Series X on Xboxygen, and many of you still want one.
Note also that for Xbox, selling Xbox consoles is not an end in itself, and that the games offer is also available on PC, mobile and tablets, and soon from a TV. Selling black plastic boxes is only part of the equation.