| Bofferbrauer2 said: Sales are dropping off very hard. The Wii U had monthly sales of between 100k and 200k outside of holidays and some big releases which pushed it past 200k at times. The last months (April and May) of the XS are just above 200k with 205k and 231k respectively, and sales are dropping further. Now compare those two months with those of the last 2 years for both the XS and the corresponding Wii U years and you get this:
As you can see, the XS had a very healthy lead over the Wii U numbers in 2022, but sales are breaking away very fast. It still has a lead over Wii U sales but we're already down to less than double when before monthly sales were over 4 times those of the Wii U. Unless Microsoft can stop hemorrhaging sales then by end of the year the monthly sales will start to be very close to the one of the Wii U. it's only real saving grace right now is that XS holiday sales are about twice of those of the Wii U, which can make a difference, but we'll have to see what it can reach this coming holiday with the sales dropping so fast. If that were to happen, then the XS has no chance of clearing the 40M mark. But if Microsoft manages to turn the ship around, then they will be able to reach 40-45M. I don't believe they will be able to sell over 45M as the decline has already been too strong imo to reach higher than that. |
After so many years of buildup and teasing their 'greatest lineup of exclusives in Xbox history' every year, just for them to continue saving them for later and later, we are ostensibly heading for a period of 12 to 18 months from Q4 of this year onwards where several of their big hitters should actually be releasing for Xbox Series.
What bolstered Wii U sales to a certain degree from 2014 onwards was it's stellar lineup of games. Mario Kart 8 alone is likely the reason that console could even get past 10M units sold. That one game is so heavily tied with the sales of the Wii U, that without it the console probably doesn't even outsell the Gamecube, which may have forced Nintendo to act even sooner to replace the system if it wasn't given that breath of life from Mario Kart 8.
By that same logic, with all the games Xbox have been touting since even before the generation began, if not a single one of them can have a significant impact towards bolstering the currently flagging sales of Xbox Series, then it's likely they struggle to reach 40M for the generation which is nearly a third of their market share lost since last gen, which also lost roughly a third of it's market share from the previous gen.
It doesn't take a genius to realise if you're losing a third of your market share every single gen, it's not like you're simply bleeding out, it's more like you're ending each round with another limb cut off. So this is basically where the Xbox console finds itself--
