Microsoft Finally Admits Xbox One Sales Were Less Than Half of the PS4 (theverge.com) 55
Official Xbox One sales have largely been a mystery, but now Microsoft is finally admitting the obvious: the PS4 outsold the Xbox One -- by a lot. From a report: Microsoft stopped reporting its Xbox One sales figures at the beginning of its 2016 financial year, focusing instead on Xbox Live numbers. The change meant we've never officially known how well Xbox One was holding up compared to the PS4 after the Xbox One's troubled launch. Analyst estimates have consistently put Microsoft in third place behind Sony and Nintendo, and now documents submitted to Brazil's national competition regulator finally shed some light on how the Xbox One generation went.
"Sony has surpassed Microsoft in terms of console sales and installed base, having sold more than twice as many Xbox in the last generation," admits Microsoft, as translated from Portuguese. Sony no longer report PS4 shipments, which means lifetime sales sit at 117.2 million as of March. While Microsoft hasn't provided a concrete sales number for Xbox One, its admission means the company must have sold less than approximately 58.5 million units. That lines up with market research from Ampere Analysis in 2020, which put the install base of Xbox One at 51 million units at the end of Q2 2020. Nintendo Switch currently sits at 111.08 million lifetime sales, and looks set to pass the PS4 later this year.
"Sony has surpassed Microsoft in terms of console sales and installed base, having sold more than twice as many Xbox in the last generation," admits Microsoft, as translated from Portuguese. Sony no longer report PS4 shipments, which means lifetime sales sit at 117.2 million as of March. While Microsoft hasn't provided a concrete sales number for Xbox One, its admission means the company must have sold less than approximately 58.5 million units. That lines up with market research from Ampere Analysis in 2020, which put the install base of Xbox One at 51 million units at the end of Q2 2020. Nintendo Switch currently sits at 111.08 million lifetime sales, and looks set to pass the PS4 later this year.
People don't remember. (Score:1, Informative)
Sony released audio CDs with undisclosed malware that would install a rootkit on your PC that served to block you from (legally) ripping the music to your hard drive.
They were hit by a class action lawsuit over this and lost, and were forced to distribute removal software for free.
Then, they released this rootkit a second time, got sued again and lost again.
I have not forgiven them. I don't use their products.
Re:People don't remember. (Score:4, Funny)
How can we forget, someone on /. will post about it on every story about Sony until the heat death of the universe.
Re: People don't remember. (Score:2)
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Because if a solution isn't 100% effective, it's completely worthless, right?
I'll never understand that mentality.
Oh c'mon (Score:2)
Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it? [techdirt.com]
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And Nintendo used to maintain a high-price stranglehold on their systems with their cartridge requirement/monopoly and trademark checks. Plus, Nintendo LOOOOVES straight-up censorship. And Microsoft... well... they've been engaging worse shenanigans since before Sony ever jumped into console gaming in the first place. Sega is long dead. Atari is nothing more than a name and logo. And all of those "open, ethical, and linux-running" consoles turned out to be vaporware.
The bottom line is that if you're a
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Plus, Nintendo LOOOOVES straight-up censorship
Not lately. These days, it's Sony that demands censorship of content they deem too risqué or not PC enough. And Nintendo's Switch, oddly enough, is often the only place that those titles can be published without any censorship.
If you want to tar Nintendo with something, their lawyers are as rabid as ever about going after anyone who threatens their IP.
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And if you're not a console gamer, you are very likely gaming on a PC and giving your money to the most dodgy and ethically bankrupt company there is.
Are you referring to Valve/steam? That's the likely spot for most games to go through, I hate steam with a passion but wouldn't call them the worst ethically bankrupt company there is....
Thinking some more, Epic, oh wait, maybe you are referring to EA? I can see you're point there. Almost don't think of them, but then they are the reason I stopped buying bioware games.
People remember (Score:3)
Without government regulation corporations are evil. News at 11:00. Well I think we should constantly improve the quality of that regulation and stay on our toes for new corporate evil at the same time it's not really practical to boycott individual companies anymore because around 7 of them make pretty much everything.
I mean I guess you could just not play video games and that's fine but if your solution to console gaming i
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That's right. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try.
There's not point in trying (Score:2)
We need to stop treating politics like it's reality TV.
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We can do more than one thing. Boycotts do work when there is sufficient participation, but even when we can't achieve that critical mass, there's a moral component that we need to consider. For example, even though the Chick-fil-a boycott hasn't been successful doesn't mean that its okay to support them. I don't eat there myself and I discourage others from doing so as well because it's the right thing to do, regardless of the efficacy. The alternative is to give money directly to people who are doing
Sounds like a you problem (Score:1)
I have not forgiven them. I don't use their products.
That happened so long ago, the people that made that choice likely no work for companies you buy stuff from today.
So you are in fact supporting them even though you claim to have not forgotten. Instead, you are not remembering the right things.
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Sony released audio CDs with undisclosed malware that would install a rootkit on your PC that served to block you from (legally) ripping the music to your hard drive.
How is Microsoft any better? They enabled Sony to do that in the first place by making Windows...
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A well designed OS built for the purposes of enabled YOU the user to use your computer effectively shouldn't be capable of running a silent installer listed in autorun.inf that installs a kernel module without user intervention. Sony Music are guilty of creating and installing malware on your computer, but Microsoft are culpable because the rootkit wasn't even an exploit, it was using facilities provided by the OS. That's negligence and should be called out.
Eventually Microsoft did belatedly nerf autorun, b
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Good Games (Score:3)
Sort of makes a case for single-player mode not being ignored and multi-platform compatibility.
Re:Good Games (Score:5, Insightful)
While that's true, what does matter is game sales numbers.
A casual glance shows Microsoft's gaming division profits increasing substantially compared to prior years, so it's reasonable to suspect that Microsoft had strong game and service (streaming) sales.
Those would be the interesting numbers to look at... since most game consoles aren't profitable.
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Re:Good Games (Score:5, Informative)
Very good point, since the XBox One release date in 2013 they've aquired Mojang, Ninja Theory, inXile, Obsidian, Double Fine, Undead Labs, all of Zenimax which includes Bethesda, id, Arkane and soon Blizzard/Activision. Crazy consolidation of development capability to be honest.
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From what I remember the Xbox One did not have as many good exclusive titles as the PS4. That is why MS was on a purchasing spree of game developers as the Xbox Series S/X were about to the launched.
Even though Steve Ballimer is gone, I still cringe when I hear about MS buying something good after what he did with the Kinect
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58 Million isn't terrible (Score:1)
In related news ... (Score:2)
Microsoft Finally Admits Xbox One Sales Were Less Than Half of the PS4
Sony suggests that Microsoft rename their console Vbox One.
So what? Seems pretty damned successful. (Score:2)
Last year I recall some spokesman at Microsoft saying that Microsoft has never made a profit on the hardware - that each console has always been sold at a loss - but that taken as a unit, the gaming sector in the company makes money.
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
"The gaming business is a profitable and high-growth business for Microsoft," a Microsoft representative told The Verge. "The console gaming business is traditionally a hardware subsidy model. Game companies sell consoles at a loss to attract new
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Sure, if no one bought games for their consoles ever you'd have a point. Every console sold needs games though and if your console sold half as many units as your competitor that means you have half the customer base for your games which is where the money is.
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Don't care (Score:2)
Had both, don't regret getting either, just like I don't regret getting the XSX/PS5. I come for the games, not some incel edgelord fanboy dick measuring contest.
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Yeah, I don't regret getting my XBox One, either. I never played many games on it (outside of Forza), but it worked wonderfully as a streaming platform. The Netflix/Hulu/Disney+ clients on it loaded quickly and worked reliably, better than my Fire TV stick or Roku ever did. It is probably ridiculously overpowered for that task, but that's probably why it loaded faster than the others.
Besides Forza what are you going to play? (Score:1)
The Xbox never had a killer app this generation or last. Even Forza I had to compete with Gran Turismo. Microsoft disastrous X bone launch coupled with the slower performance because they used slower
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The fact that Forza even can compete with Gran Turismo is a fairly significant accomplishment, since it's been the standard ever since the release of the original. I've only played old Forza (on the 360) but that was really quite good. Prior to that generation, I always owned pretty much everybody's console, usually late in the generation but while it was still in stores (except Colecovision, I didn't get that one until it was over. But I did have a VCS during the tail end of its amazingly long run.) For me
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Not really a mystery. (Score:2)
The *official* numbers might have been a mystery, but we've had reasonably accurate tracking of total sales the whole time, and one such tracking source put the PS4 at ~117M and the XB1 at ~51M. That sort of third-party tracking isn't going to be completely exact, but nobody really needs to know the exact numbers, the rough breakdown is good enough for almost any purpose.
Poor launch (Score:4, Interesting)
Their E3 opened poorly, with shenanigans about having to phone home, games chained to consoles, general lockout. Sony just had to show up and say "yeah we're not doing any of those things, k bye."
They release a cheeky video describing "Here's how your friend can borrow your game on PS4" that consisted of (1) Alice handing a disc to Bob (2) Bob saying "Thanks!" (3) End of instructions
Also the name XBone was dumb but I suppose that's personal opinion. Then again it's a bit telling when you later have to ask players "please stop calling it the XBone".
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Note: Microsoft backpedaled on a LOT of this stuff, to the point that I was honestly impressed. I said more than once that I hoped their changes would reflect positively on the next cycle, which by then I wasn't following very closely. It showed at least a little bit of connect with players, or at least People What Hold The Wallets. Long as they kindasorta listen.
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Note: Microsoft backpedaled on a LOT of this stuff
... and they would not have backpedaled had Sony not outsold them by a lot.
The only reason later Xbox systems are not as hostile towards their buyers as Microsoft would like them to be is that they are only the second in the market. Pray that Microsoft will never become the market leader, as this will switch them into full-on evil mode, instantly.
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This is probably what killed it, plus Kinect.
The problem is, there was one aspect of the Xbox that was innovative - and that was the ability to sell your "used" digital games. As is easily shown, Sony did have discs you could share, but they rather prefer you to buy it digitally where it gets locked to your account and s
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not bad regardless (Score:2)