Enlarge / Microsoft and Gamestop are hoping strong performance for the upcoming Xbox One X can help “lagging” current performance for Xbox One software.
With Microsoft no longer reporting specific hardware or software shipments for the Xbox One, public market watchers are forced to use tidbits from other sources to try to divine the system’s performance relative to the console competition. GameStop provided one of those tidbits in its latest earnings report, noting that its new and preowned software sales were both hurt by “lagging Xbox One sales.”
The mega-retailer, which has nearly 4,000 stores in the US and 2,000 more internationally, didn’t share specific breakouts for the Xbox One or other consoles, but it did say that new and preowned software sales had declined 3.4 and 7.5 percent, respectively. Microsoft’s “lagging” performance was the only reason for that drop that the retailer shared publicly; GameStop cited the slow sales a number of times in an earnings call yesterday. “In both new and preowned, we’re seeing underperformance in Xbox One versus PS4, which we believe is due to the coming Xbox One X launch,” GameStop CFO Robert Lloyd said in that call.
Yes, this report just reflects sales from one (major) retailer and doesn’t take into account direct software downloads through the Xbox One itself. Still, the “underperformance” can’t be a good sign for an Xbox division that has been falling well behind Sony on the hardware front for years now (though Microsoft has downplayed the importance of that relative race). For current Xbox One owners, poor sales relative to other consoles could continue to impact the presence of third-party exclusives and cross-platform ports on the system, at least at the margins.
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