Two things can explain the difficulty of obtaining a new generation console. On the one hand, the whole world is currently undergoing a shortage of semiconductors, which are used in a great many companies. Companies are struggling to secure product stocks, delaying exits and reducing production. Also, brands do in the face of very strong demand, which manufacturers find it difficult to manage.
So the consoles are just in time, and very quickly find takers when the stocks are not recovered by the scalpers. That being said, it do not see in the difficulty of obtaining the consoles a failure compared to the launch of the older generation, quite the contrary. In October, less than a year after launch, 13.4 million PS5s were sold. The exact Xbox Series sales figures have not been released (they are estimated at 11.4 million according to VG Chartz) but Phil Spencer, Xbox branch boss, recently spoke of the success of consoles in an interview with the New York Times.
When you’re trying to get an Xbox or a new PlayStation right now on the market, it’s really tough. And it’s not because the offer is lower than ever. The offer is actually as big as it ever was. But the demand exceeds the supply for all of us.
He also claims that Xbox Series sell better than Xbox One, which was quickly left behind by the PS4. Microsoft has since developed a whole strategy around Game Pass and backward compatibility, and envisions the future surrounded by numerous development studios. This approach obviously works very well and contributes to the success of consoles, which are not, for Microsoft, that one of the means available to access the games. In fact, in addition to the PC, the games available within the Xbox ecosystem can be launched from a smartphone or tablet thanks to cloud gaming.
At this point, we have sold more of this generation of Xbox, which is Xbox Series X and S, than we had sold from previous versions of Xbox. It is therefore our job to provide the supply to meet this demand.
