As the reason this issue is mainly coming up is the recent decline in sales for the Xbox over the last few months I thought it would be a good idea to look at how other systems performed in their 3rd holiday quarter YoY.
| Console | 3rd Holiday YoY |
| Wii | 51% |
| PS5 | 47% |
| DS | 34% |
| PS4 | 32% |
| X360 | 24% |
| Vita | 22% |
| Switch | 14% |
| 3DS | 8.2% |
| XBO | 4% |
| PS3 | 2.4% |
| Wii U | 0.002% |
| XSX | -0.2% |
| PSP | -22% |
XSX and PSP are the only two systems to show decline in their third holiday quarter. Though the PSP's is an odd situation with such a massive drop off that can probably be explained by it's very staggered launch (Japan Dec 2004, USA March 2005, EU Sept 2005) meaning that it's 2nd holiday quarter received a huge boost from being just one month after the system launched in Europe and so it's 3rd Holiday Quarter suffered YoY from that. The launch of the PS3 in it's third holiday quarter may also have damaged it.
Either way this shows a decline in a 3rd holiday is very unusual indeed.
Though it's probably the January reports that are more concerning because I see no reason for the Xbox to suddenly not be down YoY with nothing on the immediate horizon. I believe February, March and April may also see similar reports of the Xbox in decline and Redfall in May might make that the first month of 2023 that actually is up YoY. February is probably the Series best bet before this as Feb 2022 sales for the Series were lackluster.
I think Holiday 2023 for Xbox Series will be a lot bigger than Holiday 2022 was, really it has to be or any hope of the Xbox Series performing significantly better than the Xbox One is basically done.
I still believe 2023 will be bigger for Xbox Series than 2022 overall rather than mirroring the sales curve of the Xbox One which declined in 2016. Though my confidence in that may be shaken depending on the reports and figures that come out in the next few months.
