Xbox hardware sales down by a third

Are people holding out for the release of the Xbox One S and Xbox Scorpio? Quite possibly.

Microsoft’s latest financials reveal that Xbox hardware revenue sales are down 33 per cent year-on-year for the three months ending June.

There are lots of factors to consider here. For one, the discontinuation of the Xbox 360. However, 360 remains available for the time being, and presumably its discontinuation came off the back of slowing sales in the first place. Also worth considering is the downward forces on console prices, with Xbox One in particular often quite heavily discounted.

The bigger factor will likely be the upcoming release of Xbox One S and next year’s Xbox Scorpio. New hardware will always make buyers hold back. However, both machines were only announced at E3 in mid-June, meaning any impact would only have taken hold in the final two weeks of the three month period – although they were rumoured for a period beforehand.

The question now will be what impact the launch of the Xbox One S from August will have on the platform. Will that spur an increase in sales? Is there a large desire for cheap 4K movie players? Or are people now just going to hold off for Scorpio and PS4 Neo in 2017?

And will Microsoft’s commitment to releasing its big IP on both Xbox and PC have a negative influence on Xbox hardware sales?

Overall Xbox and gaming revenue was down for the period, too. In more positive news for Microsoft, Xbox Live MAUs were up 33 per cent to 49m people and Xbox Live revenue was up four per cent.