Xbox and PlayStation have been toe-to-toe with each other in the console market, and it’s almost always Xbox that is on the losing end. The sales of the Series X|S consoles have also been dropping for quite some time now, with console sales falling about 15% to 7.6 million last year.
While Microsoft Gaming head Phil Spencer continues talking about an Xbox handheld, the future of the existing hardware doesn’t look good. It becomes worse with the comments from publishers who regret providing support to Series X|S and are thinking about dropping support in the future.
Game Publishers Are Regretting Supporting Xbox Consoles
The reports of the Xbox consoles falling are nothing new, but it is being said that the console’s performance in the European market is “flatlining.” The Xbox consoles have never sold very well in Europe, but recent data hints that sales are expected to fall harder this year.
This isn’t good, as publishers are thinking of dropping support for the console. The news comes from GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring, who attended the GDC 2024 in San Francisco last week and said on the GI Microcast that his biggest takeaway is Xbox sales and how publishers are seeing it.
Here’s what a publisher said to Dring:
The phrase one major company who released a big game last year said, ‘I don’t know why we bothered supporting it’. We’re putting a lot of effort [into] trying to create a Series S version and an X version of a game when to be honest with you, for us the market is PC and PS5.
This is a big issue for Xbox as there aren’t many exclusives that pull players, and if third-party publishers decided to not support the console, it would be a big loss after its “admitted” console war loss.
It is important to know that Dring is referring to comments made to him personally by publishers, and it may be a little over the top, but it still does not make the console’s future look good.
Xbox Needs to Save the Current Hardware Before Working on Any Other
Christopher Dring also said that retailers in Europe have already started cutting back on Xbox stocks and are not listing physical games anymore. The main reason behind this is said to be the consoles being marketed as digital consoles, which has led to a decline in sales of physical games, which does not help retailers, and they needed to take this step.
This news first came right after reports that Microsoft had shut down its physical games department. Spencer has been describing what features he would like to see on an Xbox handheld, but the company needs to work on saving the current consoles first if it wants to grow sales.
However, with the release of first-party titles on PlayStation and Nintendo, it doesn’t seem likely. A new Microsoft console dev kit was recently rated in South Korea, and it is expected that it could be the leaked “mid-gen refresh” console. It remains to be seen if it helps boost sales for the company.
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