The Xbox One’s market position became more precarious in 2017 than it has ever been before- and while the launch of the Xbox One X might help it recover some momentum in the long run, for the bulk of the year, the console struggled to sell not just hardware, but worse, also software.
And this is reflected in the precarious decline of physical game sales for the platform in the UK- MCV UK is reporting that Xbox One software declined 11.1% year on year in the UK for physical sales- this is contrasted by a 6.6% increase for PS4 software, and the already reported on strong showing of Nintendo with Switch software.
Of course, it is important to remember that Microsoft has made attempts to move its users to its digital ecosystem via a variety of initiatives, including Play Anywhere, refunds, gifting, backward compatibility, sales, and Game Pass- for all we know, games actually sold more on Xbox this year when digital is accounted for. But as far as retail goes, at least, Xbox software is in decline- now to see if 2018 can reverse this trend.
