The global semiconductor shortage has affected the games industry in a big way, with supply constraints affected the sales of all consoles on the market- though perhaps not as much as one might think. Speaking recently with The New York Times, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that the supply chain is “as big as it’s ever been”, and that it’s the demand for consoles that’s far exceeding it.
According to Spencer, the Xbox Series X and Series S are still outpacing the sales of all previous Xbox consoles, as has been the case since the duo of new consoles launched, and the two have sold more than any of their predecessors at this point in their respective lives.
“Supply is actually as big as it’s ever been,” Spencer said. “It’s that demand is exceeding the supply for all of us. At this point, we’ve sold more of this generation of Xboxes, which is Xbox Series X and S, than we had any previous version of Xboxes.”
Microsoft hasn’t provided sales figures for its consoles for a few years at this point, so officially, there’s no word on how much the Xbox Series X/S have sold collectively. However, as per Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad, they’re estimated to have shipped over 12 million units worldwide, up from an estimated 6.7 million shipments as of the end of September 2021. Ahmad notes that Microsoft’s strategy of launching two separate SKUs of their new generation of Xbox has paid off, and has helped offset supply chain issues.
In comparison, the PS5 had shipped 13.4 million units worldwide as of the end of September 2021.