According to a report by Game Luster, Microsoft has confessed in a court document presented with Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) that the Xbox One system did sell much less copies than its competitor, the PS4. Microsoft is being investigated by the Brazilian government about its purchase of Activision Blizzard.
In the memo, Microsoft essentially confesses that Sony has “surpassed Microsoft in terms of console sales and installed base,” with Sony having sold more than twice as many Xbox in the previous generation.
According to Microsoft, “engagement” rather than console sales is the “primary indicator of success” the firm prefers to analyse. Regardless of Microsoft’s internal metrics for success, the Xbox One system has been less successful than Sony’s PS4 in the marketplace.
While Microsoft has confessed to selling 58.5 million Xbox Ones, the tech giant has not disclosed its console sales numbers since 2015. However, a previous analysis by Ampere Analysis estimated that 51 million Xbox Ones would have been sold by the end of Q2 2020.
Sony, however, has revealed the full PS4 sales numbers, totaling 117.2 million units. It’s official: the PlayStation 4 is “the second largest home console of all time.”
Microsoft has accused Sony of purposefully impeding the expansion of the Game Pass subscription service by purchasing “blocking rights” to prohibit developers from providing content to Game Pass and other rival subscription services, according to a court filing filed with CADE. The document from the US software giants states that “the use of exclusive arrangements has been at the heart of Sony’s strategy to strengthen its presence in the gaming industry” and that Sony’s worries about losing market share due to the Activision Blizzard deal are “incoherent” given Sony’s position as market leader in the distribution of digital games thanks to the dominance of PlayStation.
