Xbox Just Broke A Major Sales Record
Xbox has hit an important milestone.
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The NPD Group, an American market research company, just released its monthly sales for June, revealing which consoles, games, and gaming accessories sold best while also revealing the state of business in the United States. According to their sales report, Xbox Series X/S outsold Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 in dollar sales in June, breaking Xbox’s dollar sales record.
According to IGN, Xbox’s June 2021 is the best for Xbox Platform since June 2011, as the Xbox Series X/S outsold both Nintendo Switch and Sony’s PS5 in terms of dollar sales. Its performance on the market helped boost June video game hardware dollar sales by 112% when compared to June 2020, to $401 million. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, dollar sales signify how much money the console actually brought into the company, while units sales represent the total units moved. Nintendo Switch won in unit sales.
This kind of financial performance isn’t something we often see when it comes to Xbox, which is usually a clear third place to its rivals, preceded only by PC and its main competitor PlayStation. This news comes after previous market analysis, which stated that PlayStation 5 outsold Xbox Series X/S two-to-one, so it’s certainly a surprising turn of events, possibly fueled by the console’s availability, and its momentum fueled by numerous gaming releases showcased at this year’s E3.
All major consoles are currently supply-constrained, and in the current market, pretty much every modern console is selling out almost immediately or in a very short period. The ability to produce and ship more units than the competition plays a crucial role, as does the market demand, and if Microsoft had higher output numbers than Sony, and apparently it did, the math is pretty clear. PlayStation, as a whole, still remains the leading gaming console, with more than 57% of the market share over Xbox’s 42%. But the disruption in the supply chain ensured the return of the king – Nintendo.
While PlayStation 5 remains the fastest-selling console, and Xbox just broke the dollar sales record, Nintendo Switch has the strength in numbers – the most popular handheld console of all time outsold PlayStation 5 two-to-one by selling more than 84 million units worldwide. In addition, it’s worth noting that, despite the semiconductor shortages, Nintendo announced, revealed, and started the production of its latest Nintendo Switch OLED model.
As we previously said, momentum was the second important factor in Xbox’s financial success. Its proprietary subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, became a ridiculously good deal, as it provides over 100 gaming titles for a rather accessible subscription fee. Not to mention Xbox’s plans to expand to other platforms encompassed by the same subscription. Regardless, this year’s E3 showcased a large number of upcoming, high-quality gaming titles from Microsoft, including massive ones, like Forza and Halo Infinite, which finally has some semblance of a release date. Add tons of Xbox exclusives from Bethesda to the mix, like the highly-anticipated sci-fi game Starfield , and Xbox’s earnings will continue to skyrocket.
Conclusively, total spending on hardware throughout June reached $2.3 billion, which is up to 45% compared to the first half of 2020, partially driven by the launch of new consoles.
