“During Microsoft’s second quarter, the company sold a total of 1.1 million video game consoles, including both the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One,” Bargain Bin writes via Seeking Alpha. “This was only a 10% increase in unit sales year-over-year, a surprisingly small increase that was partly due to excess retail inventory.”
“But looking at unit sales over the past few months, Microsoft has bigger problems than excess inventory, with Sony’s PlayStation 4 and even Nintendo’s Wii U trouncing the Xbox One. The situation looks dire for Microsoft,” Bargain Bin writes. “Why is the Xbox One still selling so poorly? Part of the problem is that third-party titles simply perform better on the PlayStation 4. The recent hit Watch Dogs, for example, runs at a resolution of 900p on the PlayStation 4 at 30 frames per second, but is limited to 792p on the Xbox One. It may be difficult to tell the difference for most people, but this is the kind of thing that undecided gamers look at before buying a console.”
“CEO Satya Nadella recently laid out Microsoft’s [latest] strategy, classifying the company as ‘a productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world,’ and the Xbox doesn’t really fit in with this vision,” Bargain Bin writes. “Although Nadella defended the Xbox, Microsoft is an enterprise facing company first, and the Xbox appears to be more of a distraction for the company than anything else. The Xbox is neither mobile-first nor cloud-first, and it might make sense for Microsoft to spin-off the unit.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, that’s too bad. 🙂
Xbox One: Yet another stupidly-named, poorly-planned piece of mediocrity from beleaguered Microsoft.
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Disc Drive of Doom: Microsoft’s new Xbox One consoles suffer disc drive problems – November 25, 2013
Xbox One might not be the game changer Microsoft claims – May 23, 2013
Stumbling Microsoft unveils third Xbox, names it ‘Xbox One’ – May 21, 2013
i have one along with 2 ipads and the games are better on the xbox. app store has too much freemium IAP junk that ruins good games
Ya think?
While games designed for consoles definitely run better on consoles than on your two (highly doubtful) iPads, even if you connect the two iPads together with tape, I’ll take the freemium games over the Xbox Live subscription and the crappy ads blotting out the Xbox interface any day.
Take your astroturfing somewhere else.
you don’t need xbox live and even at full price of $60, games like lego marvel superheroes have more game play than most IOS games these days. although my oldest loves flight sims on the ipad 4. real flight sims.
took my kids something like 3 months to beat skylanders and there is still lots to play to finish everything in the game.
for a while i thought IOS gaming would kill the consoles, but the IAP crap where you buy gems or coins or whatever to build faster kills the experience.
Keep those kids playing video games and I’m sure they’ll grow up to be semi-literate clowns like their daddy.
Very classy.
What planet are you living on, it’s ps4 that is killing the Xbox. How can you expect iPad games at this stage to directly compete with a console. Actually the fact that you even make a comparison at all shows how much iPad gaming is and as it develops technically will eat into the console gaming experience more and more but that’s for the future though the not far distant future with recent iPad developments coming to fruition rather soon. Consoles are dead long term, they just don’t know it yet.
The OP has a very good point with all the IAP cr@p infesting all app stores (not just Apple’s).
Sadly, that seems to be where the money is nowadays and premium, good games are getting lost in the deluge of IAP junk. Long term, kids growing up will expect ALL games to work like Clash of Clans (to give an example) and then who knows what will happen to ‘real’ games that you and I grew up with?
I got a stick
had to use imagination back then…
Are you seriuosly comparing an iPad with XBOne console ( where the PSU alone weighs as much as an iPad) as a gaming platform – to judge them on an equal basis ?
Troll
Microsoft needs to allow a single charge for a game, and let users play everywhere. The way to win is to get users to fall into the ecosystem. PC titles and Xbox titles should merge. Any digital game I buy, should work on 360/One/PC where that game may exist. As games are ported, they should be accessible to prior purchasers of that title.
Steam and Apple are causing havoc in the gaming world.
PS4 is also feeling the heat. They are not specifically doing better than MS, and if they are it’s marginal.
I am afraid Nintendo has gone Blackberry on us, and may not last much longer.
Sony have Cross-Buy where you buy a game once and you get the PS3, PS4 and Vita versions — just like you are suggesting — plus the save files are synced in cloud and shared across versions.
It’s pretty darn neat.
See now I am pissed.
No, Nintendo has a big advantage over Microsoft and Sony — its collection of games and characters. Worst case scenario, Nintendo could exit the console business and simply make games for other consoles, iOS, etc.
In fact, I have long stated that Nintendo could make a fortune by simply releasing its old games for iOS. It could keep new games for the Wii for 2-3 years, and then port it to iOS. That would open up new revenue streams for old games which produce very little revenue after a few years on the market.
…BALANCE SHEET
Nintendo has got stockpiles of cash, so what similar to Apple.
They’ve got more than enough cash to ride out a failed console generation, even though fanboi will claim last gen was 360 vs PS3 that was fight for second position as Nintendo Wii sold the most consoles and made the most money by far.
…SALES
PS4 isn’t doing marginally better than Xbox One, it’s trouncing it.
At end of last quarter Sony had SOLD 7m PS4 vs Microsoft’s SHIPPED 5.5m (estimated 3.5m sold).The article you are commenting on says they sold 1.1m XbOne in next quarter, compared to Sony who’ve sold so many that they’ve actually made a profit for a change.
Also, 60% of sales of PS4 are to people who owned 360 but did not own P3 in previous generation — it’s like people switching from Windows to Mac.
If even the Wii U is currently outselling Xbox One then it really is in dire straights, and Microsoft have big problems with their formerly blockbuster console brand.
Do you know what makes that easy? Because Microsoft cut all ties to past code base, the old games aren’t compatible.
If I am screwed either way, I will go with the machine that makes the most sense to me. Plus XB1 cost more.
Sony did a good job this time.
The irony here is that the Wii U is a great system in it’s own right. It may not beat Sony, but for a kid like my 11-year-old it is infinitely better than either X-Box. Nintendo isn’t going anywhere and sales are improving. Microsoft is dying a slow death, too slow in my opinion. Xbox, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Surface, etc. – what more can they F up?
Don’t forget Zune and the Kin twins. Oh and what was their Zune music service thingy called? I’ve forgotten.
…PS4
Like many other former Xbox 360 gamers I have moved to PlayStation for this generation.
In the previous generation the 360 was better than PS3 for multi-platform games, and this generation it’s PS4 is better than XbOne. Plus I’m bored of Halo, Forza and Fable and PlayStation exclusives were great at end of generation and likes of ‘The Last of Us’ are on PS4 and it’s amazingly good.
So that’s the last of my Microsoft gone in home: Mac OS X, iOS, PlayStation
Xbox Done!
Loved my xbox 360 and love my Xbox One and I don’t give a shit what MDN has to say with its stupid take. Seriously MDN you don’t really have anything other than a stupid jibe.
MEʹNE, MEʹNE, TEʹKEL, and PARʹSIN.
BSOD, dude.
Good riddance. the original Xbox was a sad ripoff of the superior Dreamcast (Microsoft doing what they did best – partnering with someone, in that case Sega, just long enough to appropriate what they needed for their own products), it was bound to catch up with them eventually. Can’t say that I have any sympathy for them. :/
The original xbox was an x86 PC in a custom box. Had very little in common with the dreamcast. The dreamcast ran on a completely different architecture.
the only real MS connection was that the dreamcast ran a custom version of Windows CE.
I love my XBOX 360 and I think the Windows 8 theme works best for the game console than any of their other hardware. Microsoft simply messed up its XBOX One launch trying to push all their cloud BS all at once instead of slowly phasing in their concepts year over year. Microsoft’s XBOX One launch reminds me of Apple’s Mobile Me blunder.
I bet you loved Sonic 06 too! The Sega consoles, and games were better in the 90s…come to think of it…everything was better in that decade.
My Xbox 360 was a POS that kept dying from overheating. I had to return it twice for warranty repair and now it’s dead and no longer covered.
There’s no way in hell I’d buy another Microsoft console. Fool me once, shame on them. Fool me twice, shame on me.
MDN—”Poorly Named”?! What’s wrong with the name? “TenBox” is a fine name.
What? You don’t pronounce the X as “ten”? I don’t get it.
Perhaps it was supposed to be a tin box?
I hope this fails to the point where M$ will straight up leave the gaming business. The ripped of the Dreamcast, and because of this thievery, Sonic had to leave his homeland and move to Xbox. It doesn’t help that some of the worst Sonic games were released to HEXBawx! Hopefully, M$ leaves, and Sega comes back, and new, better Sonic games are made!
Xbox was the only thing MS had going too, and they blew it.
Nintendo and Apple with Wii U and AppleTV (with iOS device) both offer an experience that MS and Sony have yet to capture.
While Sony sees the light with the Vita and PS TV, Microsoft is just lost with Xbox.
Hopefully, with M$ outta the way, Sega can come back, and regain their place in the market. It’s sad seeing the only hardware that they release nowadays is just a dumb Android tablet. I want my Dreamcast 2!
The Xbox One is a real mess for Microsoft. Those of us who have been watching the console category closely knew it was in trouble from the get-go. But months and months of ever more troubling evidence to the extent of Microsoft’s failure to launch the follow up to the 360 is more alarming than anyone who follows the industry could’ve predicted. The NA market is really the only market where MS still has any strength at all, yet recently we’ve seen Sony’s PS4 trouncing the Xbox One in sales even in months where a MS took extraordinary efforts to spur sales. The month Titanfall (a wildly-hyped and advertised new franchise published by EA with a console-exclusivity deal in place to be a “system-seller” for Xbox) PS4 still beat the Xbox. Following MS’s decision to sell a SKU without the Kinnect camera, (allowing MS to slash the retail price by $100) PS4 still outsold the MS product. And this is in the USA where the brand has the most momentum.
In Europe, the story to Xbox is much, much worse. Recent sales data from Germany (second only to the UK in European game sales) shows the PS4 outselling the Xbox One by an astonishing 4:1 ratio in 2014. All momentum in Europe the Xbox brand had built with the 360 has stopped and actually reversed dramatically. It’s a complete disaster so far.
The Xbox One is failing in the same way that the PS3 was failing during the last cycle — and the same doom&gloom articles are being printed (only the console names have changed). Microsoft has made some missteps but will have the time and opportunity to turn it around in the next few years (just like Sony did).
The fact that the Xbox is underpowered compared to Playstation isn’t really that big of a deal. The 360 was underpowered compared to the PS3, and it did just fine by differentiating itself with games and services. It’s going to take Microsoft making a commitment to turning the ship around (and not ignoring it in favor of mobile, desktops and office) and they’ll do fine. There’s still room in the world for three home gaming systems.
I’m going PS4 this generation but for truly unique gameplay and originality I still depend on Nintendo. Some of the most unique and fun gameplay I’ve experienced in years has been on the Wii U.
How is the PS4? Costco has a bundle, I’m considering it, but want some opinions, please?
Having played both, I can say that there really isn’t all that much difference in the day-to-day use of the systems. The graphics are statistically better on the PS4, but in real world use it’s hard to see much of a difference at all. They both have a majority of the same apps (hulu, netflix), they both charge for online play and now they cost the same price, too. So, it comes down to exclusive games. Does any exclusive franchise catch your eye?
If it’s ‘The Last of Us’ PS4 bundle you will be in for a treat, the only bundle to avoid is the one with ‘Knack’ in it (not very good kids game).