Current Events > PS5 has outsold XBOX Series X|S 2 to 1

(+) Yeah! (+)

Its Joever

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps5-has-outsold-xbox-series-x-s-2-to-1-newly-revealed-sales-data-suggests/1100-6520964/

There was a period between 2005 and 2010 where it looked like xbox couls compete with playstation and actually tried in the gaming space.

Don mattrick destroyed them

Doesnt this happen every generation? MS has been the loser for a quarter century now.

boomgetchopped3 posted...

Doesnt this happen every generation? MS has been the loser for a quarter century now.

360 and ps3 ended up within one million of each other

boomgetchopped3 posted...

Doesnt this happen every generation? MS has been the loser for a quarter century now.

XBOX 360 was ahead of the PS3 until late in the generation. XBOX ONE really halted momentum.

I thought it was 3:1?

Don Mattrick & Phil Spencer are both clowns leading the circus, neither wanted to succeed apparently & compete

Blue_Popo posted...

360 and ps3 ended up within one million of each other

According to who? I think it was more like 3 million.

With Xbox exclusives going straight to PC there's a large group with little to no incentive to buy the console.

ItsNotA2Mer posted...

According to who? I think it was more like 3 million.

1 million, 3 million. Tiny amount for a generation

Its like the 5'0 guy making fun of the 4'11 guy for being short

hereforemnant posted...

Don Mattrick & Phil Spencer are both clowns leading the circus, neither wanted to succeed apparently & compete

It's more of Don Mattrick's fault for the current state of the Xbox brand.Don Mattrick screwed it with the Always-on DRM BS, the discless console BS, Xbox One costing 500 dollars for the kinect, being underpowered.It gave Sony a chance to regain their market share since they had PS2.

Meanwhile Phil is trying to undercut Sony as much as he can, but Sony is holding his market share. Shareholders want to cut the Xbox brand is because Microsoft is spending too much money with it. Phil was around the Xbox One launch, Xbox could have been dominat back then.

Blue_Popo posted...

1 million, 3 million. Tiny amount for a generation

Its like the 5'0 guy making fun of the 4'11 guy for being short

Facts don't matter at all, amirite?

ItsNotA2Mer posted...

Facts don't matter at all, amirite?

Its not that serious, i didnt search it up. Its super close. If that 3 million helps you sleep better, go for it

It doesn't really matter. Xbox effectively won the generation by making game pass the defacto standard that Sony has since tried to copy. Plus there's the fact that Microsoft and Sony cut a deal to have Sony streaming games running on Microsoft azure servers anyway.

Yes, they've sold fewer boxes, but they've effectively transformed the gaming landscape into a subscription-based service which is netting them far more money than they would get on console sales. Estimates put game pass at making Microsoft in the ballpark of $230 million a month.

Edit: if I'm also being pedantic, the fact that people constantly say that a game showing up on PC means that it's not an XBox exclusive would also mean that you need to count all of Microsoft's PC gaming success when comparing their gaming divisions to Sony's.

Microsoft will go 3rd party kinda, I think.

With all the IP they now own, they make more money making games for PC/Xbox first, then putting them to Sony and Nintendo consoles like 3 months later, unless you have Game Pass on those consoles then it is day and date.

They will keep making Xbox systems as a means to an end.

Isn't that because so many people bought the PS5 just to resale and they didn't sell?

DirkDiggles posted...

Isn't that because so many people bought the PS5 just to resale and they didn't sell?

People were reselling those things for like 2 years. If it wasn't for covid shutdowns it wouldn't have gone on nearly that long.

Blue_Popo posted...

Its not that serious, i didnt search it up. Its super close. If that 3 million helps you sleep better, go for it

The gap may have been smaller at the direct end of the generation but Sony did continue to support the PS3 longer than Microsoft supported the 360.

Ok and the switch beats them both effortlessly

s0nicfan posted...

It doesn't really matter. Xbox effectively won the generation by making game pass the defacto standard that Sony has since tried to copy. Plus there's the fact that Microsoft and Sony cut a deal to have Sony streaming games running on Microsoft azure servers anyway.

Yes, they've sold fewer boxes, but they've effectively transformed the gaming landscape into a subscription-based service which is netting them far more money than they would get on console sales. Estimates put game pass at making Microsoft in the ballpark of $230 million a month.

Edit: if I'm also being pedantic, the fact that people constantly say that a game showing up on PC means that it's not an XBox exclusive would also mean that you need to count all of Microsoft's PC gaming success when comparing their gaming divisions to Sony's.

Isn't game pass losing them money right now & they're hoping to recoup it in the future?

Blue_Popo posted...

360 and ps3 ended up within one million of each other

You sure about that?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5a8ef7b1.jpg

hereforemnant posted...

Isn't game pass losing them money right now & they're hoping to recoup it in the future?

Yeah. I don't think Sonicfan is necessarily correct, otherwise they wouldn't have scrubbed day one releases on the site about it. I personally hate it and I know what they're trying to do and don't like it at all. People are short sighted when it comes to this stuff.

Kaldrenthebold posted...

Yeah. I don't think Sonicfan is necessarily correct, otherwise they wouldn't have scrubbed day one releases on the site about it. I personally hate it and I know what they're trying to do and don't like it at all. People are short sighted when it comes to this stuff.

Yeah because Game Pass can't be making them that much money yet, it's just that Microsoft overall is large enough to dampen those losses since their gaming division isn't as overall large a sector compared to the company as a whole. They're doing what Epic Games is & eating the losses hoping to recoup it later, while personally I think for both it's just going to be a case of sunk cost fallacy the whole way through & they'll tolerate it because they're under the assumption they'll make enough somewhere in the ecosystem.

People don't buy PCs primarily for gaming, that's just a side benefit, & Game Pass is still kinda dogshit after several years of it being around. They're just large enough as the biggest company in the world for market cap to soak this as time goes on

It's insane how Xbox One's E3 announcement basically cratered Microsoft's good will from consumers.

yeah it takes a massive sony fuck up for xbox to compete in numbers of consoles sold. only happened once.

Blue_Popo posted...

Its not that serious, i didnt search it up. Its super close. If that 3 million helps you sleep better, go for it

I give zero fucks which piece of plastic sold more than the other. I do care about people randomly making shit up and passing it off as facts.
Just keeping you honest.

Kaldrenthebold posted...

Yeah. I don't think Sonicfan is necessarily correct, otherwise they wouldn't have scrubbed day one releases on the site about it. I personally hate it and I know what they're trying to do and don't like it at all. People are short sighted when it comes to this stuff.

Yeah, game pass has to be sold at a loss. Especially since they had day one releases on the service and they pay 3rd parties to put their games on there too.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

Yeah, game pass has to be sold at a loss. Especially since they had day one releases on the service and they pay 3rd parties to put their games on there too.

its not and is actually very profitable for microsoft.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

Yeah, game pass has to be sold at a loss. Especially since they had day one releases on the service and they pay 3rd parties to put their games on there too.

If someone has an actual link to microsoft saying they're operating at a loss I'm happy to be proven wrong, but it's tough to argue it's a loss, even WITH day 1 releases, when reporting shows it's brought in nearly $3 billion dollars in 2021 alone and has only grown since:
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/93340/xbox-game-pass-made-230-million-revenue-in-one-month-most-users-pay-for-full-subscriptions/index.html

Over the last few years, we've pieced together a lot of information and data about Microsoft and its video games division. In October 2022, we uncovered that Xbox Game Pass on console made $2.9 billion in revenue in 2021, as per a regulatory document. Shortly after, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer said Game Pass made around 10-15% of content and services revenues, leading to our own adjusted calculations.

Now Microsoft has delivered concrete data on Game Pass revenues. According to a newly published Xbox slide deck from the FTC v Microsoft federal case, Xbox Game Pass generated an average of $9.26 per subscription. We know that there were around ~25 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers as of January 2022, so Xbox Game Pass may have generated around $231.5 million in revenue for the month of April 2022.

ItsNotA2Mer posted...

I give zero fucks which piece of plastic sold more than the other. I do care about people randomly making shit up and passing it off as facts.
Just keeping you honest.

In the scale of sales these consoles make, 3 mil is essentially a tie. Again back to 5 foot guy talking shit about a 4'11 guy

s0nicfan posted...

If someone has an actual link to microsoft saying they're operating at a loss I'm happy to be proven wrong, but it's tough to argue it's a loss, even WITH day 1 releases, when reporting shows it's brought in nearly $3 billion dollars in 2021 alone and has only grown since:
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/93340/xbox-game-pass-made-230-million-revenue-in-one-month-most-users-pay-for-full-subscriptions/index.html

This is misusing financial terminology though, you're looking at revenue, money that came in from the Xbox Game Pass, while not being able to illustrate that that's not profit after expenses. It's not stated as profitable, only how much it's taken in from subscriptions & sales. Taxes, expenses & everything else isn't listed, so you'd just be inferring that it's profitable for them after all that just because the revenue looks decent.
And just like I said before, it's most certainly a sunk cost fallacy for them. This is Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg in 2020 to start:

In terms of the profitability of Xbox Game Pass for Microsoft, Greenberg confirmed it's "not a big profit play" right now. Greenberg said the investments Microsoft is making in Xbox Game Pass might be costly in the short term, but they will ultimately pay dividends down the road if everything goes to plan.

This is 3 years after they started the program mind you, obviously recent numbers say their revenue & membership are good or high, but purchasing rights to the games on the service I don't believe have been recouped yet. They can lose money on game pass for decades straight & still be profitable overall as a company because it's only 30% of their game's & service's revenue, not even a majority impact.

I cannot not find any information to prove absolutely that they aren't profitable, but I am arguing that you can't prove they are either since what I can find only mentions revenue & leaves out costs, while on record a suit says it isn't profitable at the moment.

Saying investments are costly doesn't mean its operating at a loss. Saying it isn't "a big profit play" also isn't saying its operating at a loss. If the only concrete numbers we have are that it's making $3+ billion a year, at the very least it's more reasonable to say they're making money than the alternative, which would be game pass costing them more than $3 billion a year in operating costs.

Also, I have no idea which link you used for that quote, but going by this one there's a lot more to the story than that quote in isolation:
https://www.pcgamer.com/xbox-game-pass-isnt-a-big-profit-play-now-says-microsoft/

"It's a different mindset," Greenberg says. "You can either say, 'How we do get as much profit out of each customer?' Or, do you pivot that opposite and say, 'How do we add as much value to our fans?' 'How can we actually over-deliver on value?' And if you do that, you build fans for life. And if people feel like you're over-delivering on value, they want to not only continue to use your service, but they want to tell their friends about it. That is actually the most powerful marketing; it's word of mouth marketing."

He wasn't saying it was a loss. He was specifically saying their primary short-term focus is value and not maximizing profit.

EDIT: Here, definitive proof:
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459235/phil-spencer-game-pass-is-profitable-spends-over-1-billion-to-add-3rd-party-content-to-game-pass/

"We have a service that is financially viable, meaning it makes money, in Game Pass," said Spencer. "We've put a lot of money into the market, over a billion dollars a year supporting third-party games coming into Game Pass.

So console gamers don't want power or exclusives. It is what it is

Blue_Popo posted...

360 and ps3 ended up within one million of each other

Which in principle is a victory for Microsoft since they barely register in Japan.

PS4 dominating X-Box One made kinda made sense, but why is this happening? Isn't Series X the cheaper console?

s0nicfan posted...

Saying investments are costly doesn't mean its operating at a loss. Saying it isn't "a big profit play" also isn't saying its operating at a loss. If the only concrete numbers we have are that it's making $3+ billion a year, at the very least it's more reasonable to say they're making money than the alternative, which would be game pass costing them more than $3 billion a year in operating costs.

Also, I have no idea which link you used for that quote, but going by this one there's a lot more to the story than that quote in isolation:
https://www.pcgamer.com/xbox-game-pass-isnt-a-big-profit-play-now-says-microsoft/

He wasn't saying it was a loss. He was specifically saying their primary short-term focus is value and not maximizing profit.

EDIT: Here, definitive proof:
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459235/phil-spencer-game-pass-is-profitable-spends-over-1-billion-to-add-3rd-party-content-to-game-pass/

Okay? And listing revenue before net operating costs & before expenses doesn't prove it's operating profitably either. You can't just warp strict financial terminology to suit your argument after I even tried to concede in good faith that it's not exactly clear cut in any one direction.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-game-pass-is-not-a-big-moneymaker-right-now-b/1100-6480241/

This page has more information than the article you linked, your quote did not give more information about the state of profitability for Game Pass, it's just Greenberg using vague terms to not give the game away because he's the head of marketing & can't exactly(unlike Phil Spencer did when he said they're losing to Sony & Nintendo & failing to compete) say they're losing money.

"It's a different mindset. If you do optimize for profit, and you do specifically say ... you can either say, 'How we do get as much profit out of each customer?' Or, do you pivot that and say, 'How do we add as much value to our fans?' 'How can we actually over-deliver on value?' If you do that, you build fans for life," Greenberg said.
Greenberg went on to say that Microsoft is focused on enriching the value of Xbox Game Pass, and the company has already done this by adding Project xCloud to the service at no extra cost. If people enjoy your product, they may tell their friends, and this is some of the most effective and influential marketing in existence, Greenberg said.
"When people feel like you're over-delivering on value, they want to not only continue to use your service but they want to tell their friends about it," he explained. "The most powerful marketing is word-of-mouth marketing. We can't create as many advertisements, as many assets as we want, but if both of you go tell one of your closest friends, 'You have to get Game Pass!' that's way more effective than any marketing I can do. For us, we just want to keep adding more and more value [to Xbox Game Pass] so you feel really good about that and you feel like you want to go tell your friends about it. And ultimately, we think long-term that's the right thing for the business and will have long-term benefits for us. In the short-term, yeah, [Xbox Game Pass] is not a big profit play. But we think long-term it works out good for everybody."
To help get Xbox Game Pass growing, Microsoft offered subscriptions for only $1. This helped the subscriber base grow to more than 10 million so far. If Microsoft is indeed losing money on Xbox Game Pass right now, the company can afford to take the hit, it seems.
Analyst Serkan Toto recently pointed out that Microsoft is one of planet Earth's few trillion-dollar companies--they bring in more than $120 million USD in profit every single day. Toto said Microsoft is in a position to "bring cannons to a knife fight" as it builds Xbox Game Pass.

Like I said & will reiterate for the third time, Microsoft is the largest company in the world with a 3 Trillion market share right now. Xbox can be unprofitable until the end of time for all they give a shit so long as it brings people into that ecosystem & the suits up top believe it's making those costs back up somewhere else in their portfolio. But given Greenberg's words, Spencer's words, & the data we have, you're just reaching if you think you can imply profitability from revenue when you don't have any data about expenses, taxes, or the actual gross profit margin etc etc to give to me or anyone else.

I can show you costs for games that cost 100s of millions to bring onto Game Pass, I can give you Phil Spencer's own words that say they're losing the competition battle to Sony & Nintendo right now even if Game Pass has high subscriber counts(which doesn't mean much because I'm technically one of them but it was free, how many of those subscribers got a month or more free to Ultimate or Core? Unlike Playstation Plus or Nintendo Online to my knowledge, you get free trials, but you don't get the actual paid subscription service for free to either of those. Those numbers are most definitely included in their totals.) The list goes on brother

Justin2Krelian posted...

PS4 dominating X-Box One made kinda made sense, but why is this happening? Isn't Series X the cheaper console?

The first most likely major reason is because no matter how much forum and social media posters deny it the average gamer actually enjoy those playstation exclusives like God of war, last of us, spider-man, horizon zero dawn etc. Yeah, some of these games get ported to the PC months/years later, but again net's posters forget that console gaming and PC gamers operate in their own separate ecosystems for the most part.....what goes on with PC ports is of no concern to the average console gamer. Final fantasy rebirth is due in like 2 more weeks and a wolverine game, made by the same company behind the very well-received marvel's spider-man games, was announced...these are the kind of games pulling more people towards a playstation.

Another reason is because of just how much console gamers bought a PS4 compared to a xbox one these same gamers wanted to carry over all their PS4 game purchases to the PS5. This mattered a lot at the start of the new console generation since it took a bit for even more native PS5 and series s/x versions of games to show up. Also, free PS5 upgrades to a lot of those PS4 games PS4 owners already owned. Free nioh 2 uograde?....hell yeah I'll take that.

Also Sonic, this comment in that article you linked is exactly my point lmao:

Costs are costs, they have to be assigned somewhere in the accounts. The point is that if MS produced actual accounts for a Gamepass Division those accounts would look very differently, all costs would need to be assigned correctly, even costs accrued from other internal divisions. They dont produce those accounts so they can basically assign costs however they want. They are likely not accounting for any of the costs associated with those first party games that are added day one either.

Is Game Pass profitable because in a bubble the subscription service is? Or is it profitable because Microsoft can bear the weight with their operations & support it regardless because they paid money into cloud systems, servers, software, & so on elsewhere already so Game Pass can be profitable because it's supported by systems they already invested in. Put Game Pass in a bubble from the get go by itself without the money already invested everywhere else to prop it up, & they'd be in the hole probably 10$ Billion dollars. But because it's all Microsoft related, they can assign costs however they like & cook the books

hereforemnant posted...

Okay? And listing revenue before net operating costs & before expenses doesn't prove it's operating profitably either. You can't just warp strict financial terminology to suit your argument after I even tried to concede in good faith that it's not exactly clear cut in any one direction.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-game-pass-is-not-a-big-moneymaker-right-now-b/1100-6480241/

This page has more information than the article you linked, your quote did not give more information about the state of profitability for Game Pass, it's just Greenberg using vague terms to not give the game away because he's the head of marketing & can't exactly(unlike Phil Spencer did when he said they're losing to Sony & Nintendo & failing to compete) say they're losing money.

Like I said & will reiterate for the third time, Microsoft is the largest company in the world with a 3 Trillion market share right now. Xbox can be unprofitable until the end of time for all they give a shit so long as it brings people into that ecosystem & the suits up top believe it's making those costs back up somewhere else in their portfolio. But given Greenberg's words, Spencer's words, & the data we have, you're just reaching if you think you can imply profitability from revenue when you don't have any data about expenses, taxes, or the actual gross profit margin etc etc to give to me or anyone else.

I can show you costs for games that cost 100s of millions to bring onto Game Pass, I can give you Phil Spencer's own words that say they're losing the competition battle to Sony & Nintendo right now even if Game Pass has high subscriber counts(which doesn't mean much because I'm technically one of them but it was free, how many of those subscribers got a month or more free to Ultimate or Core? Unlike Playstation Plus or Nintendo Online to my knowledge, you get free trials, but you don't get the actual paid subscription service for free to either of those. Those numbers are most definitely included in their totals.) The list goes on brother

Okay. Address my edit where Spencer says Game pass is profitable, then tell me again what your argument and evidence is for gamepass not being profitable. If your argument at this point is "well they must be cooking the books" then I think we're done here because you won't be able to actually prove it.

EDIT: and for full context here, let me remind you what your first post was in response to me saying Gamepass is a money maker:
hereforemnant posted...

Isn't game pass losing them money right now & they're hoping to recoup it in the future?

And here is an unambiguous answer to that question:
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459235/phil-spencer-game-pass-is-profitable-spends-over-1-billion-to-add-3rd-party-content-to-game-pass/

"We have a service that is financially viable, meaning it makes money, in Game Pass," said Spencer. "We've put a lot of money into the market, over a billion dollars a year supporting third-party games coming into Game Pass.

s0nicfan posted...

Okay. Address my edit where Spencer says Game pass is profitable, then tell me again what your argument and evidence is for gamepass not being profitable. If your argument at this point is "well they must be cooking the books" then I think we're done here because you won't be able to actually prove it.

EDIT: and for full context here, let me remind you what your first post was in response to me saying Gamepass is a money maker:

Game Pass is profitable because Microsoft independently invested in cloud gaming, Azure, other services, & took losses for years before the concept of Game Pass was even conceived. All companies do this, the costs come out of other sectors of their portfolios & are made up for their 3$ Trillion market share from software or elsewise. We know the systems themselves are losing money as well in the same regard, but when operating systems boil down to Windows>Apple>Linux, yeah of course overall they can be profitable anywhere they like. Phil Spencer talks out of both sides of his mouth like all these corporate suits do, you keep ignoring that which is leading me to believe you just want to ignore whatever runs counter & not consider that you're running off of one dude's word of mouth with an inconsistent track record & no financial data given.

You moved the goal posts far & away from the revenue part of this discussion because you knew it didn't mean shit, so am I supposed to just concede you're right based on nothing now? Because you can't actually pull up anything that the Game Pass Division is actually profitable, just that they're making money overall because it's Microsoft & they're the largest company in the world lol

Game Pass isn't profitable because they've given no actual financial statements or records that prove it is, besides one dude Spencer saying "trust me bro," when he's been talking out of both sides of his mouth for years now. You realize that's where you're at now right?

hereforemnant posted...

This is misusing financial terminology though, you're looking at revenue, money that came in from the Xbox Game Pass, while not being able to illustrate that that's not profit after expenses. It's not stated as profitable, only how much it's taken in from subscriptions & sales. Taxes, expenses & everything else isn't listed, so you'd just be inferring that it's profitable for them after all that just because the revenue looks decent.
And just like I said before, it's most certainly a sunk cost fallacy for them. This is Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg in 2020 to start:

Yeah, basically itts like selling jars of honey and making 30 dollars from it but then not telling anyone that you spent 25 bucks to produce it in the first place. If you just say 30 dollars is how much you made, they just assume that's all profit without the rest of the figures in play.

Mad-Dogg posted...

The first most likely major reason is because no matter how much forum and social media posters deny it the average gamer actually enjoy those playstation exclusives like God of war, last of us, spider-man, horizon zero dawn etc. Yeah, some of these games get ported to the PC months/years later, but again net's posters forget that console gaming and PC gamers operate in their own separate ecosystems for the most part.....what goes on with PC ports is of no concern to the average console gamer. Final fantasy rebirth is due in like 2 more weeks and a wolverine game, made by the same company behind the very well-received marvel's spider-man games, was announced...these are the kind of games pulling more people towards a playstation.

Another reason is because of just how much console gamers bought a PS4 compared to a xbox one these same gamers wanted to carry over all their PS4 game purchases to the PS5. This mattered a lot at the start of the new console generation since it took a bit for even more native PS5 and series s/x versions of games to show up. Also, free PS5 upgrades to a lot of those PS4 games PS4 owners already owned. Free nioh 2 uograde?....hell yeah I'll take that.

Basically people care about exclusives regardless of what people might think. Xbox mostly has the same games as a playstation but don't have the games that only Playstation come out with and the xbox's exclusives all tend to be pretty terrible. Halo Infinity isn't great and Starfield has mixed reviews and both come out on PC anyway.

Mad-Dogg posted...

Another reason is because of just how much console gamers bought a PS4 compared to a xbox one these same gamers wanted to carry over all their PS4 game purchases to the PS5. This mattered a lot at the start of the new console generation since it took a bit for even more native PS5 and series s/x versions of games to show up. Also, free PS5 upgrades to a lot of those PS4 games PS4 owners already owned. Free nioh 2 uograde?....hell yeah I'll take that.

doesn't the xbox series do this too? Xbox even lets you play games as old as the original xbox. I would say this is a good reason why Playstation gamers stick to playstation but its definitely the exclusives(as you've mentioned) which might be pulling in new buyers.

Justin2Krelian posted...

PS4 dominating X-Box One made kinda made sense, but why is this happening? Isn't Series X the cheaper console?

Mad-Dogg posted...

Another reason is because of just how much console gamers bought a PS4 compared to a xbox one these same gamers wanted to carry over all their PS4 game purchases to the PS5. This mattered a lot at the start of the new console generation since it took a bit for even more native PS5 and series s/x versions of games to show up. Also, free PS5 upgrades to a lot of those PS4 games PS4 owners already owned. Free nioh 2 uograde?....hell yeah I'll take that.

Xbox also had a bunch of games with the free next-gen update IIRC, but this is definitely a big reason. Microsoft kind of **** the bed with the XBone launch, and couldn't really recover, so the PS4 absolutely dominated that generation. And since last gen was also the gen where most people and companies started shifting to digital purchases, and both PS5 and Series consoles have backwards compatibility, most people aren't even gonna think about changing consoles this gen.

Sort of downstream effects of Xbox losing last gen is basically guaranteeing a loss this gen.

Blue_Popo posted...

In the scale of sales these consoles make, 3 mil is essentially a tie.

Wow, you're really moving those goalposts! Hey everyone, this thing sold within 1,000,000 units of that thing, (give or take 2,000,000 units of course). But hey everyone, that essentially makes it a tie!
LOL, GTFOH.

Okay so I dig more digging on this, few things of note that are interesting:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/krisholt/2022/10/10/microsoft-reveals-how-much-money-xbox-game-pass-rakes-in/?sh=2a8ac7a928b5

As spotted by TweakTown, the report notes that Microsoft generated $2.9 billion in global revenue from Xbox Game Pass on consoles last year. This figure doesnt include PC Game Pass. Its not clear how Game Pass Ultimate revenue factors in here either. However, Xbox Game Pass subscribers topped 25 million last year.
Xbox Game Pass accounted for 18% of total Xbox revenue last year ($16.3 billion) and 23% of Microsofts games and services revenue ($12.6 billion). The figure is a drop in the bucket compared with Microsofts total revenue of $184.9 billion for the 2021 calendar year Xbox Game Pass accounted for just over 1.5% of the companys overall revenue over that period. (Microsofts fiscal year runs from July to June.)
For what its worth, the report points out that Xbox Game Pass generated $60 million in revenue from Brazil in 2021.
Intriguingly, the report also contains details on multi-game subscription services for consoles (per Google Translate) for Nintendo and Electronic Arts. It pegs those as $932 million for Nintendo Switch Online in 2021, and $356 million for Electronic Arts (presumably EA Play) on consoles.

The numbers that sonic for instance has been listing, don't include PC Game Pass or how Ultimate factors into things, that changes things. I will honestly concede then that I can see how Phil says it's profitable now, because we were all under the assumption(to my knowledge) that those numbers included that, & were not just Xbox Series X|S by themselves. Even if I didn't want to give Microsoft/Xbox the benefit of the doubt, I can't pretend that that doesn't make a huge difference & can be profitable if it's all included, even if the margin is slim.

But otherwise, I had to find actual numbers elsewhere that prove the profitability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f65vdMipCgk
Someone linked that in a The Verge comment section, it shows quarterly earnings & info proving beyond a doubt that much to my chagrin, Game Pass as it stands now is profitable, & that video is like a year old or so. Sony might be outselling them 2:1 on consoles, & the whole ship is heading into an iceberg because of the doubt on what's really going to be exclusive anymore, but in this one case I was wrong. So anyways good talk

dameon_reaper posted...

doesn't the xbox series do this too? Xbox even lets you play games as old as the original xbox. I would say this is a good reason why Playstation gamers stick to playstation but its definitely the exclusives(as you've mentioned) which might be pulling in new buyers.

Yeah they both do the same thing when it comes to the free upgrades. I didn't mean that the upgrade thing itself is why a lot of console gamers went with a PS5.....more like they are upgrading that massive PS4 library they already owned.

For the people who have been gaming on the PS4 from either it's launch in 2013 or getting it sometime in like 2015 (this is me. I went from mainly gaming on the 360, to moving over a bit to the PS3 in it's later years, to really jumping into the playstation ecosystem in january 2015), when the choice between sticking to the exact same ecosystem to continue game purchases or swapping over to the other that was rarely used (the xbox's in this case) once november 2020 came around the majority is definitely going to stick with the one they have been invested in for what is almost the past decade of gaming. It all comes back to microsoft dropping the ball with the xbox one.

While the xbox does actually offer backwards compatible gaming with like the og xbox and 360, it is nowhere near those platform's full library that actually made the BC list, so it wasn't a huge priority (for me anyway). Since both the PS5 and series s/x offer what is almost full BC with the previous generation of games, carrying over and upgrading (or downloading PS5 patches) the PS4's more well known console exclusive games like the already mentioned nioh games, ratchet and clank (the movie tie-in one. This one got a PS5 patch), ghosts of tsushima (another PS5 patch), final fantasy 7 remake (which imo received a excellent native PS5 version. That door got fixed, lol), or even if the PS4 game didn't get a PS5 patch performance boost or native PS5 version being able to continue playing games like bloodborne with no fps hiccups and persona 5 royal (before this game did start getting next generation versions) was nice, and so on is more appealing overall if you look at it objectively. *I did get a xbox series x myself not too long ago and while playing enhanced state of decay 2 and grim dawn is nice (alongside fps boost gears of war 3), the playstation side is still beating the xbox side out by sheer game numbers.*

I mentioned it before here and there, but I really like me some gears of war. I finally got a gears 4 xbox one s when the game launched, and.......it just wasn't as good as what gears of war 3 was. This was another one of microsoft's biggest problems.....their legacy IPs wasn't really knocking it out of the park on the xbox one compared to the xbox 360 entries, aside from like forza.

*Well for gears of war they stumbled a good bit when they released judgement on the 360. Gears 4 and 5 while they aren't nowhere near being terrible doesn't quite reach that overall package that gears 3 did.*

There is fans of IPs like halo or fable (which unfortunately got a major game cancelled and a studio shut down) that is feeling the same way I am about gears and microsoft needs to find out exactly how to fix that.