Xbox Series S and X combined were the top-selling consoles in January, beating out both PS5 and Nintendo Switch according to Gfk (and reported by GI.biz).
Nintendo Switch came in second, with the console up 21% on its January 2020 numbers. Strong sales from all consoles led to a 148% increase year on year for hardware sales.
Read More: Sony Reveals That PS5 Has Sold 4.5 Million Units Since Launch
Xbox Series S and X Outsold PS5, Nintendo Switch in January
As for Xbox Series S/X console numbers, industry analyst Daniel Ahmad previously tweeted that Microsoft's consoles are around 1 million behind Sony's.
“Take a bit over 1 million off the PS5 number and you won’t be far off," he tweeted in response to IGN's Ryan McCaffrey last week.
Microsoft still doesn't report numbers, however.
In an interview with the Guardian back in November, head of Xbox Phil Spencer noted that the company is more focused on the number of players, as opposed to the number of consoles sold.
“In the last year we’ve had Google and Amazon and now Facebook announcing they’re coming into our gaming space. I’m not gonna go compete with their numbers based on how many Xbox Series X I’ve sold,” he said.
“[Google] is never gonna talk about how many Chromecast Pros they sold. They’re gonna talk about how many players they have.”
Microsoft stopped reporting sales figures in the last console generation, with many assuming it was due to conceding the lead to Sony's more popular PlayStation 4 – something Spencer is aware of.
“I think the people who want to pit us against Sony based on who sold the most consoles lose the context of what gaming is about today," he explained.
“There are 3 billion people who play games on the planet today, but maybe [only] 200 million households that have a video game console. In a way, the console space is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the overall gaming pie.”
All of this is despite the ongoing pandemic and issues with scalpers.
As we reported yesterday, a private member's bill called the "Gaming Hardware (Automated Purchase and Resale) Bill 2019-21" is aiming to stamp out scalpers.
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