Sony vs. Microsoft. Who earns more in the fight between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series?
For every PlayStation 5 in circulation, Microsoft sells only one Xbox Series Yet the situation could be reversed, if the value of Activision is taken into account
If you have followed the odyssey that led to the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft for around 70 billion dollars, you will know well that, while Nintendo did not object in any way – indeed immediately signing the agreement for the arrival of Call of Duty on its consoles -, Sony fought with all its might to prevent it, arguing that that operation would limit competition.
A COMPETITION NEVER STARTED
Yet PlayStation consoles have always sold much more than Xbox ones and even the latest match between PS5 and Series X | S does not show, as explained in the following paragraphs, any surprises whatsoever. In 2001, a Sony executive even let it slip that the Xbox was “finished.” 1:1 comparisons are now impossible. Also to "hide" the market difficulties, Microsoft has long stopped disclosing the exact numbers of consoles and video games.
THE SUCCESS OF PS5 IN NUMBERS
Instead, we know that Sony sold 4.9 million PlayStation 5s in the last quarter, up 1.6 million units on the same period last year. The company therefore expects to live up to its forecasts for the year, set at 25 million consoles. And we also know that since launch (marred by well-known production difficulties due to the chip war) 46.6 million PS5s have been sold to date.
MICROSOFT MAKES IT CONFIDENTIAL
And the Xbox Series? Ah, to know . Microsoft is less than halfway there, having sold around 21 million next-generation Xbox consoles, according to reports from an ID@Xbox independent developer event held earlier this summer in Brazil. This is a plausible figure, considering the history. But the second quarter of the year is missing, it's true. However, noteworthy extensions will hardly have occurred. Nintendo is naturally a story in itself, which before the summer was close to 130 million units.
THE TWO TOP TITLES: STARFIELD AND SPIDER-MAN 2
As we said, the situation is unlikely to have changed, because if it is true that in the meantime Xbox Series for sure it reached sales of 2.5 million units in the first 24 hours and already in the first week of November it sold over 5 million copies. So does PlayStation win over Xbox across the board?
WHO WINS BETWEEN PLAYSTATION AND XBOX?
It's not for sure. It is now known that Microsoft, having understood that it cannot compete with Sony, has changed its strategy, ceasing to focus on the sales of its consoles. And the main revenues continue to come from those who play on PC. ù
But, above all, there is the purchase of the software house behind that immense blockbuster called Call of Duty. When combined, Microsoft and Activision's video game revenue was $10.4 billion in the first half of this year, comfortably higher than Sony's $8 billion.
BETWEEN THE TWO FIGHTERS…
However, nothing compared to Tencent. Already in 2021, thanks to the lockdowns, video games had earned Tencent something like 32.38 billion dollars, with an increase of 9.9% compared to the previous year, also thanks to growth in foreign markets. Of course, this is a doped figure, but in June of this year the gaming division already exceeded 15 billion. And the Chinese actor, as we know, is continuing to acquire software houses at full speed . In short, there is a risk that Tencent will win between the two litigants.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/sony-microsoft-scontro-playstation-xbox/ on Sun, 26 Nov 2023 06:28:16 +0000.