According to games industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls, the PS5 is on track to outsell the Xbox Series X in 2022. He spoke about the stock shortages of the consoles due to the global chip shortage and massive demand in a report from Ampere Analysis, a continuing issue both Sony and Microsoft are facing almost 18 months after launching the new gen hardware.
Read: Samsung takes the wraps off the Galaxy S22 and S22+
Harding-Rolls went on to state that in 2022, the availability of the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S are going to improve slowly over the year. He added that “our expectation is that Sony will outsell Microsoft two-to-one.”
Interestingly, he predicts that the console that will sell the most in 2022 is the Nintendo Switch (albeit, not competing for the same customers as the PS5 and Xbox. The increase in demand for the Nintendo has come from the launch of the upgraded OLED Switch, and is expected to sell around 21 million units. The PlayStation 5 is expected to sell about 18 million units, while the Xbox Series X/S will sell around 9 million units in 2022.
🎮Last year the console market saw strong consumer demand met by pressure on availability of components. How will this evolve in 2022? – @PiersHR
Xbox Series: 9m.
PlayStation 5: 18m
Nintendo Switch: 21m
Watch the full video here: https://t.co/qE2HwpcTFZ pic.twitter.com/5mqbZeDkIh— Ampere Analysis (@AmpereAnalysis) January 20, 2022
Additionally, Harding-Rolls said that game subscription services are set to grow by 27% across North America and Europe this year. The services that offer download distribution are “going to be the main part of the market”, and will “generate the most growth.” On the other hand, services that supply streaming-only are going to be worth 6% of that market.
One of the major reasons that Xbox is buying Activision Blizzard is to push their subscription service Xbox Game Pass, which in turn means that it will sell more hardware (whether that is PC hardware of the Xbox is inconsequential to them). It will be interesting to see how it shifts sales expectations as the hardware becomes more easily available.
