For a while, Xbox has had rumors floating around like, “Is Xbox going away?” “There’s no point in getting an Xbox anymore.” or “Is Xbox going to stop making consoles?” Today, we are going to look into these rumors.
Xbox recently announced that they are releasing all of their exclusives including billion-dollar games like Call Of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, Starfield, Forza Horizon 5, and more. Many have one question, why would you do that? Well, Xbox’s new marketing campaign is “everything is an Xbox” meaning you can do anything on an Xbox, anywhere else. Microsoft’s CEO of gaming stated, “We want our hardware to win based on the capabilities that we have.” Although this is clearly untrue.
Last year Xbox sold 2.7 million units in America, in 2024 it sold 3.8 million units, in 2023 it sold 4.5 million units. That’s a 40 percent decrease in sales in 4 years, and they performed even worse globally with only 290 thousand units sold in Europe. Meanwhile, the PS5 is breaking charts selling millions of units globally. Not only is it selling less but they are also much harder to find. This month I personally tried to purchase an Xbox X and ended up having to buy it online for a bit more. I had gone to over 5 stores from Maple Valley to Tacoma and Renton, and every store would send me somewhere else who “should” have it the town over. But, every store I went to looking for an Xbox, Had a PS5.
I asked Owen Hurley, a long-time Xbox user, a few questions. “Now that Xbox has given up all its exclusives, and they are more expensive and much harder to find, do you think it’s worth it to get a new-gen Xbox?” “I’ve been using Xbox since I was a kid, it was the console that all my friends used, so of course I got an Xbox to play with them. But now, most people have a PS5 and it has all the games for less, so the obvious choice would be the PlayStation. I don’t know though, I’ve made a connection with Xbox and it would be hard but I would most likely get a PS5.”As Owen stated, many are still holding onto their connection with the Xbox they’ve had since a kid. I also asked Pyricin Dyer “What’s your thoughts about Xbox going 3rd party? Pyricin said “Is there gonna be a lot more prioritization of the consoles themselves now that they don’t have exclusives to win people over. Because of this there’s a potential. There’s less focus on games and more focus on performance.”
In the end, it looks like Xbox is ending the console wars, and not by winning, but basically by forfeiting and saying “We’re gonna profit some other way.” Those that are left are the PS and Nintendo, somehow.
Works Cited
Lee, Davonte. “Xbox Sales Hit Rock Bottom After Historic 2024 Decline.” 9meters.com, 9meters.com, 7 Feb 25, https://9meters.com/technology/consoles/2024-was-the-worst-year-ever-for-xbox-console-sales-with-just-under-3m-units-sold-in-the-us-and-290k-units-in-the-eu-during-the-year-2025-is-shaping-up-to-be-even-worse?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
Tassi, Paul, and Christian Petersen. “Xbox’s Third-Party Path Seems Permanent, According To Phil Spencer.” Forbes, 27 January 2025, https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/01/27/xboxs-third-party-path-seems-permanent-according-to-phil-spencer/. Accessed 7 March 2025.
