Xbox Series X predicted to have double the sales of PlayStation 5 by Christmas

[Cal Jeffrey]

In context: The console wars are in full swing, but it is still too early to tell which next-generation system will emerge on top. However, that is not stopping analysts from making their predictions.

One of the first prognosticators out of the gate is the SEO firm The Hoth. Analysts at the firm poured over data from Google Trends throughout the year and have concluded that the Xbox Series X will outsell the PlayStation 5 by Christmas.

"It's been seven years since the last console war and statistics indicate that Sony was by far the big winner, selling twice as many PS4s as Microsoft did Xbox Ones," The Hoth CMO Clayton Johnson told TechSpot via email. "If this [current] trend data is anything to go by, it looks like the pattern will be reversed, at least for the first Christmas."

Search engine graphs show a surge in interest in the Xbox Series X in December of last year, giving it an early lead in the public arena. This spike was immediately following Microsoft's announcement of the XBSX in a Youtube video that received 14.6 million views.

Microsoft held on to this lead until the summer months when interest shifted to Sony's PlayStation 5 in June. This spike correlated to when Sony took a deep dive into the PS5's hardware. Consumer interest in the previous generation's king of the consoles continued through July.

In September, both Sony and Microsoft revealed their release dates and pricing for the new consoles. Xbox went first and saw six times more searches than Playstation at the beginning of September. Once Sony divulged the PlayStation's pricing and launch date, interest shifted with consumers searching for "where to buy" the PS5 10 times more than the XBSX by the end of September.

These peaks are direct correlations to announcements from both companies and tell us little about customer commitment. However, The Hoth says that now that almost everything worth knowing is known, search trends reveal more interest in the Xbox Series X. It predicts that by Christmas, Microsoft's system will outsell Sony's by a margin of 2:1.

However, take such predictions with a healthy grain of salt. For one, not everything has yet been revealed. The report does not take into account that just today, Sony unveiled the PS5's new UX in its State of Play address, which is sure to gain some interest. Microsoft is also likely to have some cards left to play as we head into the launch next month. Additionally, while it may be a good rule of thumb, search trends do not necessarily translate directly to sales. Twice as much interest does not mean twice as many sales.

It is still anybody's game at this point, and both companies are likely to pull out all the stops very soon. So far, it has been a game of tit-for-tat, with each trying to one-up its competitor's last move. I feel the war is far from over and won and that there are still consumers to be swayed in one direction or the other, so grab your popcorn.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/87121-xbox-series-x-predicted-have-double-sales-playstation.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

XBox will probably win the Christmas season in America...but Playstation 5's gonna win the "war".

Fortunately, now that I'm PC Master race, I can remove myself emotionally from this battle of two lessers.

 

[DZillaXx]

I feel that Xbox will take back America, I have no doubt there. And I have a feeling that in terms of global sales this holiday season will also go to Xbox. Simply because of more units to sell. MS has two products lines, Series S & X. This will not only allow them to pump more units out, but sell them to a wider audience range.

Europe will most likely stick to Sony, and overall PS5 and Xbox Series sales will be pretty close. Epically with the massive amount of games PS5 will no longer have access too once we see the large number of MS game studio games coming out. They have so many Studios under the brand it will be hard to miss, but it won't be for a couple years till we start to see them roll out.

But I do see the Xbox being the primary console 3rd party devs create games for. The NA market leader is what tends to be the console most games are tailored to. Series X is hands down the more powerful console, this isn't even debatable. So we'll see if that helps them this time around. My PS4 was my main console last gen simply because 3rd party games played better on it.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Does anyone really care? except fan boys Let's hope they both sell well.

I've stated I will be PS5 V2 in a bundle sale in a year or so .
If I was starting out XBOX would be the way to go - Instant mega bundle with ultimate game pass or whatever it's called

 

[brucek]

My impression had been that both models would sell all of the units they could manufacture before the winter holidays, making analysis via search queries a complete red herring.

Or has this changed and retailers now expect plenty of both?

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

oof

 

[m4a4]

oof

Big oof

 

[Endymio]

>> " Search engine graphs show a surge in interest in the Xbox Series X in December of last year, giving it an early lead...."

XBox is getting a boost in the data, as most people are having to search multiple times to get the console's name correct. ?

 

[Kirby1]

Seems odd that they would see more consoles since all the xbox games will be on PC and PS4 is $100 cheaper.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Big oof
View attachment 87138

I figured someone would bring this up. The problem is "xbox" and "playstation" are shared terms for all generations.

The interest for "xbox one" is less than half of "xbox" because people are using "xbox" to search for both purposes (but probably primarily for the current gen). Meanwhile it's the opposite for Sony: "playstation" has half the interest as "ps4". So what people are googling is typically the shortest term available.

Anyways, I've created a new hoslistic graph of both current and next gen search interests (since there is no accurate way to separate these results):

xbox = xbox, xbox one, xbox series x, xbsx, xbone
playstation = playstation, ps4, ps5, playstation 4, playstation 5

In my opinion, the graph shows that interest was greater for xbox as a whole last year and now it's greater than or very close for playstation.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

I figured someone would bring this up. The problem is "xbox" and "playstation" are shared terms for all generations.

The interest for "xbox one" is less than half of "xbox" because people are using "xbox" to search for both purposes (but probably primarily for the current gen). Meanwhile it's the opposite for Sony: "playstation" has half the interest as "ps4". So what people are googling is typically the shortest term available.

Anyways, I've created a new hoslistic graph of both current and next gen search interests (since there is no accurate way to separate these results):

xbox = xbox, xbox one, xbox series x, xbsx, xbone
playstation = playstation, ps4, ps5, playstation 4, playstation 5

In my opinion, the graph shows that interest was greater for xbox as a whole last year and now it's greater than or very close for playstation.

Never mind, even my graph is inaccurate. I just found out the way Google Trends works, "xbox" includes searches for "xbox series x" and "xbox one". So really what should be compared is "xbox" plus "series x" minus "xbox series x", and "playstation" plus "ps4" plus "ps5". Here's the conclusive results that show playstation was leading a bit last year, but is really ahead now:

 

[m4a4]

Never mind, even my graph is inaccurate. I just found out the way Google Trends works, "xbox" includes searches for "xbox series x" and "xbox one". So really what should be compared is "xbox" plus "series x" minus "xbox series x", and "playstation" plus "ps4" plus "ps5". Here's the conclusive results that show playstation was leading a bit last year, but is really ahead now:

Well, at least you got a lot closer this time around. You used the short form (ps5) vs a long form (xbox series x) for that first graph.

Still probably not as accurate as it could be, but certainly more honest
Might want to include the "S" variant now that it's been announced. But otherwise, I don't expect google trends to reflect the actual sales come holidays.

 

[texasrattler]

XBox will probably win the Christmas season in America...but Playstation 5's gonna win the "war".

Fortunately, now that I'm PC Master race, I can remove myself emotionally from this battle of two lessers.

For MS there is no war. They won a long time ago have said they dont care about who wins or even if Sony sells more. They could sell every console at a loss (which they will) and that still wouldnt even come close to putting a dent in their pocket book.

 

[Adhmuz]

One thing for sure the Xbox One X has outsold both of these just because of the naming similarity to the Series X...

For MS there is no war. They won a long time ago have said they dont care about who wins or even if Sony sells more. They could sell every console at a loss (which they will) and that still wouldnt even come close to putting a dent in their pocket book.

Agreed, and I'm with Microsoft on that point, not caring if which console outsells the other.

Besides I'm more interested in what this will mean to the PC side of gaming, and the potential improvements it can bring there.

 

[Puiu]

These are the most useless graphs and predictions I've ever seen. It's just shows some google trends and nothing more and these trends can read in so many other ways.

 

[Kosmoz]

People saying "I don't care who sells more..." that's being ignorant actually. For MS that might not be a problem, but for Sony it is. They need to sell more, a lot more than MS so they can have enough money to fight MS, which is a giant compared to them.
So yeah, Sony will sell again more, these search graphs are a joke, Sony upped their production and they know why, I trust their judgement more than this article's predictions.
And about the most important thing for everyone that calls himself a gamer = the games. So far Sony delivered with PS4 and they look like they are doing it again with PS5, while MS with all their new studios are still years away from a proper AAA next gen game... And a good great one, not a mediocre one.
When they deliver that, I'll care about them too.

PS. So far the few 3rd party games announced seem to run at the same level of performance on both XSX and PS5, so that little spec advantage XSX has is irrelevant even for 3rd party games.
Also, PS5 UI runs at 4k with HDR while XSX is still (like X1X) only 1080p, which is funny.

 

[Edster]

Is kinda of a irrelevant graph because for the first few months there would be more buyers than supply. I really don't think MS and Sony really did enough right or enough wrong for people to really change their ecosystem. PS3 suffered from obscene pricing, the Xbox One suffered from basically endless own goals in its unveiling.

Saying MS won the war is kind of wrong, if anything, they lost from the very start of last gen and has been plotting a new type of warfare ever since. If they had won, they wouldn't had bothered to buy big studios, so they very much are still in the fight. They are merely gearing up for the next one, except they are aiming for Steam, Epic AND Sony. Buyers of PS5 is one less potential adopted of Gamepass, it still cuts into their profit. It just means not selling as much consoles merely means they won't hurt as much as they would otherwise. So here is where they are now, their gaming ecosystem won't be hurt too much if they have setbacks in GamePass/PC or consoles as they have the other to rely on. It means they need to have a catastrophic run to be knocked out of the gaming business; is pretty smart.

I mean if you look at Sony and Nintendo, if the PS4 and Switch respectively was a dud, they probably be out of hardware gaming completely by now. Whereas Series X/S can be utter failures, MS will still have strong presence of GamePass.

 

[DZillaXx]

PS. So far the few 3rd party games announced seem to run at the same level of performance on both XSX and PS5, so that little spec advantage XSX has is irrelevant even for 3rd party games.
Also, PS5 UI runs at 4k with HDR while XSX is still (like X1X) only 1080p, which is funny.

Just because its marketed at a target resolution and framerate, doesn't mean it hits it all the time. XSX will keep internal rendering at higher levels while keeping a better frame rate than the PS5. We will see play DF PS5 vs XSX comparisons soon. I would put money on the new assassins creed playing better on the XSX, hands down. The XSX is just a better designed gaming machine, Performance per Watt and Performance per Die mm^2 is just hands down better. We already know how energy efficient RDNA 1 was when the clocks were dropped down a little.

And the XSX doesn't just have a little spec advantage.

Its more than the difference between a 2080 and a 2070.

IMO the only reason why people like DF have not been allowed to test the device is largely due to how much worse it is when comparing older titles on the PS5 compared to the XSX doing the same tests. While the PS5 is no slouch, the PS5 is a good deal slower. TF count isn't what matters. We know how clock speeds effect GPUs. We know you can OC a GPU 20% yet only have a FPS boost of 5%. We know from decades of GPU history that games do scale better with more cores than higher clock speeds. We also know how CPU dependent some games can get, and if the PS5 can't always keep the CPU at high clock speeds we have a problem. The biggest one is Raytracing, in RDNA2 these are in the CU's and more is simply just better, clock speed isn't going to help much here. XSX is going to have massively more ray tracing power.

 

[EdmondRC]

XBox will probably win the Christmas season in America...but Playstation 5's gonna win the "war".

Fortunately, now that I'm PC Master race, I can remove myself emotionally from this battle of two lessers.

To be honest, you don't really need the XSX if you have a decent gaming PC. If MS continues to keep their promise about all MS exclusives being on PC, then it really just becomes a preference. I like PC simply because I can have one box that plays all my games. Plus with competitive store fronts to purchase games, usually you can get games cheaper.

 

[DZillaXx]

To be honest, you don't really need the XSX if you have a decent gaming PC. If MS continues to keep their promise about all MS exclusives being on PC, then it really just becomes a preference. I like PC simply because I can have one box that plays all my games. Plus with competitive store fronts to purchase games, usually you can get games cheaper.

Well Xbox is both PC and Console. Xbox is an ecosystem, and that includes the PC.

I've been a PC gamer since the DOS days. But I've always had all the consoles every generation. I've gone through the phase of playing any game I could on the PC, and I've gone through the I'm sick of sitting in a chair phone. There are games I would rather play on PC, and some I'd rather play on the TV. I've done the gaming HTPC, and will not do it again. I like consoles and computers for my games. I'm in the phase of my life where Kids rule my life. Sitting in my office alone doesn't quite always work.

IMO MS's goal is getting Gamepass/XCloud on everything they can. I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the Switch at some point. I don't see how anyone could not see that MS is going to be a huge force in the gaming world going forward. The number of game studios they now control is crazy, this is not the MS we knew last generation.

 

[Kosmoz]

Just because its marketed at a target resolution and framerate, doesn't mean it hits it all the time. XSX will keep internal rendering at higher levels while keeping a better frame rate than the PS5. We will see play DF PS5 vs XSX comparisons soon. I would put money on the new assassins creed playing better on the XSX, hands down. The XSX is just a better designed gaming machine, Performance per Watt and Performance per Die mm^2 is just hands down better. We already know how energy efficient RDNA 1 was when the clocks were dropped down a little.

And the XSX doesn't just have a little spec advantage.

Its more than the difference between a 2080 and a 2070.

IMO the only reason why people like DF have not been allowed to test the device is largely due to how much worse it is when comparing older titles on the PS5 compared to the XSX doing the same tests. While the PS5 is no slouch, the PS5 is a good deal slower. TF count isn't what matters. We know how clock speeds effect GPUs. We know you can OC a GPU 20% yet only have a FPS boost of 5%. We know from decades of GPU history that games do scale better with more cores than higher clock speeds. We also know how CPU dependent some games can get, and if the PS5 can't always keep the CPU at high clock speeds we have a problem. The biggest one is Raytracing, in RDNA2 these are in the CU's and more is simply just better, clock speed isn't going to help much here. XSX is going to have massively more ray tracing power.

You and a few others that think there is this big difference in performance on 3rd party games between PS5 and XSX in favor of XSX will be proven wrong soon. It's gonna be negligible at best.
DF 600% zoom is not a normal gaming session, that's not how people play games, to spot the pixel difference. If one is true 4k and the other dynamic 4k I could care less if I can't see the difference unless I pause the game and do a 600% zoom.
Actually the better designed and more efficient console is the PS5, numerous devs already said that, but people keep ignoring their comments or they just call them paid liars, etc.
Again I'll say, you will be proven wrong soon. Also I'm not interested to continue this discussion about this subject, so I won't reply back. I'll wait for the benchmarks and tests after launch to prove it.

 

[brettjv]

Just because its marketed at a target resolution and framerate, doesn't mean it hits it all the time. XSX will keep internal rendering at higher levels while keeping a better frame rate than the PS5. We will see play DF PS5 vs XSX comparisons soon. I would put money on the new assassins creed playing better on the XSX, hands down. The XSX is just a better designed gaming machine, Performance per Watt and Performance per Die mm^2 is just hands down better. We already know how energy efficient RDNA 1 was when the clocks were dropped down a little.

And the XSX doesn't just have a little spec advantage.

Its more than the difference between a 2080 and a 2070.

IMO the only reason why people like DF have not been allowed to test the device is largely due to how much worse it is when comparing older titles on the PS5 compared to the XSX doing the same tests. While the PS5 is no slouch, the PS5 is a good deal slower. TF count isn't what matters. We know how clock speeds effect GPUs. We know you can OC a GPU 20% yet only have a FPS boost of 5%. We know from decades of GPU history that games do scale better with more cores than higher clock speeds. We also know how CPU dependent some games can get, and if the PS5 can't always keep the CPU at high clock speeds we have a problem. The biggest one is Raytracing, in RDNA2 these are in the CU's and more is simply just better, clock speed isn't going to help much here. XSX is going to have massively more ray tracing power.

Don't disagree w/much of what you're saying but I will take issue with these two assertions:

1) We know from decades of GPU history that games do scale better with more cores than higher clock speeds.

Not really. Typically you either have 'enough cores' for a given game or you don't. Beyond that count, additional cores do almost nothing (but more clock speed still might) to improve performance. And 4-6 cores TOPS has been the point of vastly diminishing returns for about a 7 years I'd say. Before that it was 3-4 cores for about 7 years.

2) We also know how CPU dependent some games can get, and if the PS5 can't always keep the CPU at high clock speeds we have a problem.

Not very many games are highly CPU dependent when played at higher resolutions because the GPU gets bottlenecked first. And most TV panels out there are 60Hz, with some at 120Hz. It's possible some games will be setup to target 120Hz (with lower graphics settings possibly needed) to achieve that framerate where the console with a more powerful CPU provides a small advantage but I don't think most people will notice much difference in those cases.

I certainly would want the xbox X for more powerful specs but that's mainly for longevity. Over time I think the more powerful machine will differentiate itself (4-5 years from now) but in the beginning I bet both machines will perform indistinguishably.

 

[Polycount]

>> " Search engine graphs show a surge in interest in the Xbox Series X in December of last year, giving it an early lead...."

XBox is getting a boost in the data, as most people are having to search multiple times to get the console's name correct. ?

This made me chuckle.

 

[m3tavision]

Microsoft will be bringing a Home Assistant, into the house... and an entire entertainment sytem and an HTPC... in the Series X.

PS5 is just a gaming device.

 

[juggaloRazzam]

Wrong. I searched about about microsoft buying bethesda - guess what. I’m still not going to buy an xbox. Playstation is awesome, if I don’t play the next fallout - meh. big whoop plenty of other games.