Good finish to the year for both the PS5 and Switch though I was kinda expecting more after November. The former was down compared to the same month for the PS4 but not by that much and it only sold slightly less than 1m for the whole year compared to the PS4 in 2017 which is actually quite good considering it had the Pro model giving that year a boost and that it was the peak year for it. I was expecting closer to 16m than 18.65m so a strong holiday season made up for a kinda middling previous few months. With the PS5 Pro now out and 2025 likely being the biggest year for gaming of the decade there's a good chance it outsells the PS4's 2018 this year and could even be up which would be impressive this far into its life. It was down this year but after the really strong 2023 that's completely expected and it wasn't even by that much in the end.
For the Switch it had a more expected December being close to 25% down after being almost flat for November but that's still good considering its age and overall its final major holiday season was great letting it end its final notable year at just over 12m which is better than I expected since I thought it'd be at least 30% down and it wasn't. With the Switch 2 on the way 2025 will of course be down massively, probably by at least 40% unless it launches in the 2nd half of the year but that would still give it a good shot at overtaking the PS2 so the Switch is ending its life extremely well. It'll depend on when exactly it launches but for a May-June launch about 15m would be a strong start for the Switch 2.
Xbox Series on the other hand is just a big yikes. After a November that was towards the upper end of my expectations this December crashed below even my low expectations at nearly 50% down. Not even a million sold in the biggest month of the year is basically disastrous and being a bit over 60% down compared to the equivalent month for the Xbox One is insane even if it had the One X helping out at that time. Just about 5m for the year is really bad when predecessor did 9.1m the equivalent year and the successor is still years away but at least the decline in 2025 should hopefully be lower after it declined by a tad over 30% this year but even 4m for a year would be starting to approach near dead levels so the platform is gonna be on life support by like Spring 2026.
Overall I'd say this was just a decent year for console hardware sales but 2025 will be a lot better thanks to the Switch 2 and which will help make up for Xbox starting to die. The next few months will be mundane but the launch of that will give a needed huge jolt of excitement.
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