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Xbox Sales Are Super Dead

StereoVsn

Gold Member
I still want a series x just to play lost lost Odyssey and blue dragon on. Plus my kids have long been dying to play a forza horizon game. Also to be able to play Gears on.
But damn the thing is expensive to just have for some novel games.
It will probably hit the $350 range during BF, or you can just get used one for like $300.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Quick...go and buy a ps5 from the same store..and a switch....we need more Data!

I See Data GIF by Star Trek
 

Mahavastu

Member
Now here’s the kicker, the manufacture date is 29-May-2023. Like wtf, that’s 1 and a half years ago. How do you still have stock that old?
In 2020-2022 there was a huge chip shortage and Playstation + XBox had problems to make enough Consoles to satisfy demand.
In early 2023 it started to get better and Playstation started to manufacture more consoles to fullfill demand and had incredible success in sales.
I guess XBox tried the same, finally produced as much as they expected to sell and then the sales numbers decreased instead of improving.
IIRC May 2023 was the around the time of the Redfall release, which did not live up the expectations, and Starfield a few months later also did surprisingly not helped to sell the consoles Microsoft already made.

And how is Microsoft ok with that?
They are not. Since around that time you see more and more symptoms of XBox leaving the console hardware market. Of course they do not say it in public, but some actions can not really be explained in any other way. I see parallels about how Microsoft behaved in the year before WindowsPhone was dumped.
 
I loved my original Xbox and the 360 was my first choice for the generation that followed. It had the better controller and was often stronger in multi-platform. Only TLoU and friends on PS3 playing GTA V online got me to fire up the PS3 which I bought as a Blu-ray player. Microsoft had landed. I even bought the Kinect but the novelty wore off quickly.

At the release of Xbox One and PS4 the choice was obvious which to get first. I always assumed I’d get a One later on but then never did, as the PS4 Pro and PSVR came out around the time I’d have most likely jumped in.

This current generation was personally a tighter decision for me due to the apparent difference in specifications, but I opted for a PS5 Digital first due to the price and larger extant library from PS4, and the more interesting controller.

Nothing since then has really tempted me to double-dip, the performance has largely been the same, and PSVR2 and now PS5 Pro has instead taken the spare budget. Halo Infinite and Starfield had me hovering over the buy button in the lead up to their release, but then personally didn’t seem worth it for me.

And now whenever I think about getting in on Xbox Series X I just start daydreaming about going a PC build route again instead to get the same games but in a better way.

I’m personally not a fan of a rental subscription for games so GamesPass has never appealed to me. If PlayStation offered the same I wouldn’t sign up, either. I prefer curating and building my own digital library across platforms like iTunes, Steam, and PSN etc.

No real point being made. I’m just offering a single datapoint in case of any post-mortem market research scraping threads like these.

If Xbox Series X was consistently a good chunk ahead in performance on multi-platform stuff, I’d have bought one. If Halo Infinite reignited the same energy Halo 2 gave me, I’d have bought one. If Starfield was revolutionary and closer to Elite Dangerous in how you explore, I’d have bought one.

If Xbox does make a handheld console with some decent performance packed into it, I’d be extremely interested. Since buying a PS5 I’ve bought into Switch and Quest ecosystems, and almost Steam Deck, just because they offer something different.

I’m very excited about the prospect of a handheld Xbox, but Series X so far just hasn’t given me that fizz of excitement that gets my wallet whimpering.
 
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Cakeboxer

Member
The first clue that Xbox sales are dead is that nobody really cared about the X 2TB at 600$ but everyone got upset with PS5 Pro at 700$.
I've seen lots of "But the Xbox 2TB" comments, but it's no new hardware. Not much to talk about more space or another colour besides the stupid price tag.
 
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SyberWolf

Member
with PS5 Pro, i wonder if Xbox will release a "pro" model with "DLSS" capabilities.
because they were always talking about the "cloud" aka AI upscaling.
 

notseqi

Member
I'm more surprised that people still go to big box retailers to buy things. I just have Jeff Bezos send it all to my house.
i went to buy eLeCtRoNiCs in a local biggus boxus and stuff was cheaper than on amazon, five minute drive all in all.
think i might do that more often since amazon is hassling me for a prime membership since i quit mine when they cut features (after having it since prime started) and it annoys the everliving fuck out of me.
 
The first clue that Xbox sales are dead is that nobody really cared about the X 2TB at 600$ but everyone got upset with PS5 Pro at 700$.
I didn’t even know it cost $600. I just assumed the die shrink refresh got it by default at the same price.

But that the Internet in general isn’t screeching about a 2TB XSX costing $600, but is about a $700 2TB PS5 with a bigger GPU, more available and faster RAM, and game changing AI upscaling does say a lot.

That XSX refresh should have been 2TB by default at the same or even reduced price.

There’s the disc drive difference to be fair, but for me that has been digital library only since Steam released, and for the entire PS4/5 era, it doesn’t factor into it.
 

cireza

Member
Now here’s the kicker, the manufacture date is 29-May-2023. Like wtf, that’s 1 and a half years ago. How do you still have stock that old? So this got me thinking about how overstuffed the channels must be for Xbox is they still have inventory from 1.5 years ago.
Now face the hard, cold truth Microsoft !
 
The price isn't the issue.
It’s not the main issue but it’s a bandaid solution to help stem the bleeding. The problem with Xbox right now is that there’s no reason for the average person to buy one. Literally 0 reasons and as a result, the sales are drying up. Microsoft took away all the reasons to buy an Xbox console. If you buy a ps5, the reward for doing so is exclusive, unique, high quality content. The same is true for the Switch.

If you buy a Series, your reward for doing so is nothing. There’s barely any exclusive content and those that are exclusive are trash. People talk about gamepass but it’s also trash. I was an ultimate member for 3 years and there were only like 3 games worth playing. Services are about content and gamepass does not deliver unique and exclusive content. Now they’ve put call of duty on gamepass to entice people but, also jacked up the price. The issue is if I want to play cod, I’d buy it and play it instead of subscribing to gamepass as it’s significantly cheaper.

So, since they lack a valid reason to buy one, they need to drop the price to that of the switch Oled. Maybe even lower. They can’t pull an AMD and sell a worse product like $50 cheaper than the competition. People will pick PlayStation or switch all the time. Instead, there needs to be a noticeable price difference between the two. They should also forget about launching new hardware anytime soon. Unless they fix their content problem and provide a valid reason for consumers to buy new hardware, it’ll flop badly. As it stands, the Nintendo switch with its 10 year old tablet cpu still sells more units than series consoles. That’s all you need to see to realize that hardware is not the issue at all.
 
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DanielG165

Member
Funny I saw this thread today. Bought a refurbished lemon Series X from GS this weekend, returned it for a new one, and paid a difference of $15. So far, it’s definitely a wonderful system, especially for $15.09 lol.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Funny I saw this thread today. Bought a refurbished lemon Series X from GS this weekend, returned it for a new one, and paid a difference of $15. So far, it’s definitely a wonderful system, especially for $15.09 lol.

Bur what was it's manufacturing date and did you take into account packaging dates plus 5 months on the sea for shipping.
 

SweetTooth

Gold Member
I like how some posters are passive aggressively angry at OP 🤣

How dare you state some facts OP!! Xbox is outselling both PS5 and Switch combined!/s
 

DanielG165

Member
Bur what was its manufacturing date and did you take into account packaging dates plus 5 months on the sea for shipping.
Don’t know, no, and no. All I know is, the Xbox… Box was sealed, and the system itself was fresh. Is a NEWLY made Series X in terms of when it was built? I don’t know, and maybe I’ll research it if I’m curious enough. But, having a working SX instead of one that kept freezing and crashing whenever a game was running is all that matters to me.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Don’t know, no, and no. All I know is, the Xbox… Box was sealed, and the system itself was fresh. Is a NEWLY made Series X in terms of when it was built? I don’t know, and maybe I’ll research it if I’m curious enough. But, having a working SX instead of one that kept freezing and crashing whenever a game was running is all that matters to me.

We simply must know it's manufacturing date.

Seriously. Glad you have a working unit now 😀
 

DanielG165

Member
We simply must know it's manufacturing date.

Seriously. Glad you have a working unit now 😀
I’ll likely look into it out of sheer curiosity, that stuff always interests me. And thank you! Hopefully I didn’t come off as short, that wasn’t my intention brother.

I guess Xbox can say they have a new sale now lol. It’s a shame though, because the hardware is genuinely one of the most well-engineered pieces of tech I’ve ever used.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I felt Sony was actually vulnerable at the start of this cycle. The momentum was with Xbox for a short while, they had the TF advantage that was widely pushed to early adaptors, they had Atmos support, VRR, better legacy support with Smart Delivery and with next-gen software development lagging behind this was a boon in 2020. The XSS was readily available throughout, while PS5 and XSX were near impossible to find. Gamepass was a boon too; great deal during pandemic actually. I had it running for 2 years ish. At first I saw the appeal, until Sony started to release a steady stream of exclusive games and MS only had momentum when they released FH5 and Halo back to back late '21. I simply didn't extend; I wanted to play the latest good games and most of those wouldn't appear on GP but I had to buy. The pandemic impacted maiden days of these systems were over.

MS fucked up again. They just didn't release anything, they probably thought they could continue with souping up legacy games for their new system. Did the fans really want a Series X just to play Gears 5 and FH4 again? Then the exclusive games that did come out were usually panned. Even Halo Infinite, which I enjoyed the first few hours, is a dud in retrospect and they fucked up the MP too. So yeah... I do think MS had some sort of fighting chance early on, but they blew it again.

If I think about it, nearly every decision backfired for Xbox as a brand which got them into this situation to begin with. First Kinect with X1, this cost them pretty much all built up good will with the 360 and they haven't regained share since. Then banking on legacy games, promoting Series without next-gen exclusives backfired, XSS budget model backfired, Gamepass backfired, acquisitions backfired (which I guess is what happens when you buy the worlds biggest publisher but you barely have a user base). More than ever it makes sense for them to step out of the hardware race while all things considered Xbox should've been projected to be a behemoth right now.
 

DanielG165

Member
They’ll likely find success either way by becoming the gaming industry’s biggest third-party publisher; we probably just won’t see dedicated Xbox hardware after the next generation. Which again, is a bit of a shame, as Xbox consoles have been absolutely stellar hardware since the One S. I’ve thrown Immortals of Aveum, and Fallen Order at my SX, and the thing barely doesn’t go above, “ completely inaudible”.

Excellent hardware and software that would’ve absolutely shone bright with more killer apps and dev support sooner. Alas, the installment base just doesn’t seem to be there. The fact that no massive games to show off their pro console were available either day 1, or soon after, just shouldn’t have happened.
 
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