Xbox Series X and S consoles have been racking up sales for Microsoft. First, the Series S was the best-selling console of Black Friday 2021, then the S and X hit a combined 12 million units sold as of January 2022. March was a big one for Xbox too — the biggest it’s ever had, in fact.
The latest NPD sales number paints the picture, as shared on Twitter by Axios’ Stephen Totilo. Xbox Series X/S “was the best-selling hardware platform in both March 2022 and the first quarter in dollars,” the report says. “Switch led both time periods in terms of unit sales.” The difference there is easy to understand: the Nintendo Switch costs less, so it can sell more than Xbox or PlayStation while making less money overall.
PlayStation 5 is the one lagging when it comes to money. As Totilo points out, it fell behind the Switch in terms of units sold and behind Series X/S in terms of dollars during the first quarter. Conversely, March was an “all-time high” for Xbox. March 2011 was the previous top month for sales units, at the tail end of the Xbox 360 lifecycle. March 2014 held the previous record for dollars, about half a year after the Xbox One’s launch. Series X/S just beat them both.
Game Pass continues to be a winner for Xbox too. It passed 25 million subscribers at the beginning of the year. The all-you-can-play service isn’t the only way “to win” for the company, but it certainly is a big piece of the pie.
