Sony recently announced that the PlayStation 5 has reached a major financial milestone by selling more consoles than the majority of Xbox consoles. However, is it really true that the PS5 has also outsold the Xbox 360? It’s a little complicated.
PS5 Surpasses Xbox 360 in Total Sales
In a recent financial report, Sony revealed that the PS5 has now sold a total of 84.2 million units. This figure is actually up from PlayStation’s initial projections for this year. The console’s boosted sales were likely due to the launch of Ghost of Yotei in October, which Sony has also recently called a “massive success.” However, the milestone that most are focusing on is the PS5’s total sales reportedly surpassing every Xbox console.
Based on reported figures, the PS5 has now outsold the Xbox 360, which moved a total of 84 million units. If you’ve done the quick math, that means the PlayStation 5 has currently sold 200,000 units more than the classic Xbox console.
Where things get tricky is the sales figures themselves, as in 2015, Microsoft stopped reporting console sales completely. The American publisher instead shifted its focus to highlighting game sales and player milestones.
At the time, many believed Microsoft made this decision due to the PS4 continuously beating out the Xbox One in sales month after month. Of course, this makes it difficult to gauge the actual total number of Xbox 360 consoles sold.
With Sony recently announcing that the PS5 is only halfway through its life-cycle in 2025, though, I find it hard to believe that it wouldn’t eventually surpass the sales of the 360 by a good margin. So yeah, let’s just say the PS5 has now outsold every Xbox console Microsoft has ever released.
Best-Selling Game Consoles of All Time
With the PS5 now having sold more than every Xbox Microsoft has ever released, you may be wondering where Sony ranks among the highest-selling consoles of all time. In that regard, the PS5 still has a long way to go, because Nintendo has absolutely dominated this list—and by a good margin.
My mind is still a little blown that the Nintendo DS sold 154 million units, for example. Still, Sony holds the top spot for the console that has sold the most of all time with the legendary PS2. The classic console’s sales were largely boosted by its ability to play DVDs, which helped it continue moving record numbers of units even after the company had moved on to the PS3.
The Top 10 Best-Selling Consoles (2025 Update):
- PlayStation 2 (160M)
- Nintendo DS (154.02M)
- Nintendo Switch (154.01M)
- Game Boy (118.69M)
- PlayStation 4 (117.2M)
- PlayStation (102.49M)
- Wii (101.63M)
- PlayStation 3 (87.4M)
- PlayStation 5 (84.2M)
- Xbox 360 (84M)
Why Xbox Consoles Have Struggled to Keep Up
So what is the main takeaway from all of this? Well, at a glance, it’s that Nintendo and Sony PlayStation have continued to dominate the console gaming space since the ’90s. Even decades later, the two titans still have a tight grasp on the industry. But at one point, Microsoft actually stood a real chance of becoming a dominant player.
In fact, the Xbox 360 was even outselling the PlayStation 3 initially. However, two major moments stand out to me as the reasons Microsoft has continued to lose its position to PlayStation.
The first was the infamous Red Ring of Death hardware failure during the 360 era. At that point, the console was already a mainstream success, so it didn’t actually damage the company’s reputation as much as it could have.
But, it certainly slowed down the console’s sales toward the back half of its life-cycle and also left a sour taste in the mouths of some consumers going into the next generation. However, the biggest blunder was the always-online Xbox One console.
At the time, players were outraged that Microsoft was requiring a constant internet connection for it to work. In hindsight, this is pretty amusing, since almost everything requires an online connection nowadays.
On top of that, Microsoft forcing the Kinect as a pack-in with the Xbox One drove its price up to a staggering $499. This was over $100 more than the PS4 at launch. Suffice to say, it felt like Microsoft was never able to fully regain its momentum from the 360 era following these two blunders. So much so that it’s now rumored that in 2027, the next-gen Xbox console won’t even try to compete with the PS6 and will instead be an expensive gaming PC. Only time will tell if this rumored move will further push Xbox behind the competition.
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