Data Claims the PlayStation 5 Outsold the Xbox Series x 3 to 1 in the 2023 Holiday Season, Is Having a Game Pass Not Enough to Get People on the Green Team?

The holiday season has arrived, which may be the best time to get into video games. Due to various ongoing deals, there is a significant increase in game and console sales during this period. However, most gamers are opting for PlayStation 5 this holiday, as the Sony console has outsold Xbox by 3:1.

According to the Financial Times, the PlayStation 5 sales grew about 5% to 22.5 million units in 2023, while the rival Xbox sales dropped 15% to 7.6 million. The Japanese giants are outperforming their American rivals by three to one ratio. Despite Xbox offering better game subscriptions, PlayStation 5 exceeded their sales, and the latter’s Black Friday sales played a significant role.

Aside from offering some eye-catching sales, PlayStation also won this sales battle because of what they got to offer. The Japanese console provides an incredible single-player experience, which has remained unrivaled in recent years. Sony has some mindblowing exclusives in its PlayStation catalog that fans would never get bored of.

Compared to rival PlayStation, Xbox lacks when it comes to exclusive. Most so-called Xbox exclusives have been simultaneously available on PC since day one, motivating gamers to buy a PC and a PlayStation 5 to play all the recent video games.

Fans believe Sony manages its first-party studios better, giving it an edge over Xbox

The unrivaled gaming experience PlayStation offers is because Sony demands perfection from its first-part studios. Every year, PlayStation ups its titles significantly, resulting in masterpieces like the God of War, Spider-Man, and The Last of Us series. When it comes to Xbox, their first-party studios were unable to provide such experiences. This year, their most ambitious projects were Redfall and Starfield, both of which failed miserably.

PlayStation has also been very strict about its exclusivity, preventing the first-party studios from releasing games on rival platforms. Although they have lately ported many exclusives to PC, the games have already hit the sales mark on PlayStation within three to four years of their release. Meanwhile, Xbox, instead of taking the exclusive route, allowed one of their major studios, Activision, to release their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II on the rival console.

Xbox CEO Phil Spenser is well aware of this dominance of PlayStation over their consoles. Moreover, he claimed they lost this battle because of their failure with the Xbox One generation, which is when people built their digital libraries. Sony offered great games on their last-generation consoles. So, when buying a new console, most opted for PlayStation 5, as they already had good libraries on the Blue side.

It doesn’t appear that Xbox will outperform its Japanese rivals anytime soon. However, the American behemoths have big plans, having acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion and intending to launch their app store to compete with Google and Apple.