2024 has not been a good year for Microsoft and its gaming brand. Sure, if you ask certain higher-ups, they’ll tell you “great stats” that are full of caveats and context-driven statements. But when you look at the hard numbers, they tell you a different story. Such as how they’ve had to lay many people off after a key merger and then closed studios down to “keep itself healthy.” Then, there was the problem of having to try and get more software sales by making exclusive titles multiplatform. Fast forward to now, and the Xbox line of consoles might not even be sold in key countries going forward.
To be clear, this hasn’t been confirmed yet. This detail was provided by Tom Warren in his newsletter. He got a “hot tip” that noted how the Xbox line of consoles isn’t selling well in areas like Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. As such, Microsoft might stop putting consoles in great numbers in that region so that they can focus on other things they feel they can sell, such as Game Pass and console accessories. If that is the case, which Warren himself said he hasn’t gotten confirmation about this yet, that would be a huge shift in their marketing policy and could mark a decided trend going forward.
As for how Microsoft is doing with its current console, it’s not good! Figures show the Series X/S behind sales of the previous generation of consoles, and that’s even compared to the sales of the PS5, which is well more than double what Microsoft has done despite releasing in the same year. Oh, and don’t get us started on how Nintendo continues to do well despite being in its 8th year of life, putting the Microsoft console to shame in all regions.
This will spark conversations about what Microsoft can do to try and increase its sales—if it can at all! You might have noted that there were ads going around stating that you can play the Game Pass without an Xbox, which is true because of PC, but this seems to indicate that they’re pulling away from the console to focus on their gaming service more than their hardware.
The irony of all of this is that, technically, the Xbox Series X/S is a better console hardware-wise, but, without the games to support it, people will go to the other systems more times than not.
