It’s no secret that PlayStation outperformed Xbox during the last generation, but new court documents have provided further insight as to how badly Sony crushed Microsoft during the previous console war.
The new court papers, which stem from CADE and were released as part of the Brazilian competition authority’s investigation into whether Microsoft should be allowed to acquire Activision Blizzard, reveals that PS4 managed to sell over twice as well as the Xbox One did.
“Sony has surpassed Microsoft in terms of console sales and install base, having sold more than twice as many [than] Xbox in the last generation,” according to a portion of the text on page 18 of the document, which was spotted and translated by a member of GameLuster.
Unlike Microsoft, PlayStation hasn’t been shy about sharing its sales numbers, as pointed out in Eurogamer’s coverage, and the reason for that seems to be pretty clear at this point.
Back in January, Sony confirmed that more than 116m PS4 consoles have now been sold worldwide, and recently gave a lifetime sales total of 117.2 million, making it one of the most successful consoles of all time, if not quite eclipsing its most popular system, PS2. And while Microsoft has been more reticent about its sales figures, if the claims in the Brazillian court papers are right, that means Microsoft’s Xbox One system could have sold around half that amount: somewhere in the region of 50-60 million.
Other portions of the paperwork would indicate that Xbox intends to lean hard into its Game Pass subscription services to compete with Sony and the PlayStation brand, noting a shift away from “a strategy of ‘device-centric’ business towards a more consumer-centric” or “gamer-centric” service.
Microsoft has also argued that the addition of Activision Blizzard titles to its Game Pass catalogs wouldn’t “represent a ‘tipping point’ in the market,” although some people seem to think it will boost the Xbox business dramatically.
Source: CADE