The Xbox story reaches its 25th anniversary this year, and it has been a long, strange road to get here.
During the Xbox 360 generation, Microsoft made a serious dent in PlayStation’s global dominance in the console space. Sony‘s misfired PlayStation 3 allowed Microsoft to gain a serious foothold in the then-growing market, and it has remained a staple ever since.
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The Xbox Series X|S consoles are the best Microsoft has ever built, but the audience has sadly not responded to them as strongly as Microsoft likely would’ve liked. (Image credit: Microsoft)
Microsoft, of course, does still plan to sell Xbox hardware. I reported last year that the next Xbox will effectively be a Windows PC, complete with a living room-friendly interface and Xbox console backward compatibility. Microsoft said as much when it revealed a multi-year mega-partnership with AMD for next-gen Xbox first-party consoles, touting backward compatibility therein.
The next Xbox is going to be full Windows, fully open, with support for Steam, GOG, Epic Games, Battle.net, and even things like Office and Adobe Suite. It will also run your existing Xbox games too, but it likely won’t be cheap … the DRAM price glut, tariffs, and its nature as a “PC” notwithstanding.
In any case, Xbox has found itself on the bottom rung in the console sales race for many years now, losing out to PlayStation and Nintendo month in, month out. Xbox’s future seems to revolve around blending with its growing Xbox PC operation, and it’ll be interesting to see how all of that plays out.
But you might be wondering, if Xbox is doing so badly right now, why do developers and publishers still even launch games on Xbox?
Data shared by Alinea Analytics paints a picture of an Xbox platform that punches above its weight, with heavily engaged users willing to turn up in droves for games that interest them. I initially became curious about this when PlayStation itself decided to launch Helldivers 2 on Xbox. If Xbox is doing so badly, as netizens often like to claim, why would Sony itself want to publish a game on Xbox?
It seems that the old “shooter box” stereotype may be real for Xbox.
Alinea data suggests that, despite PlayStation’s vastly bigger install base, Xbox is almost neck and neck for many popular shooters. (Image credit: Alinea Analytics)
Microsoft doesn’t share granular data about how games perform on its platform, nor does it reveal detailed figures about how many active users is actually has per platform, per device. But, popular estimates suggest PlayStation has anywhere up to 3 or 4 times Xbox’s console user base. If true, game sales data doesn’t always correlate directly to that purported market share disparity.
PlayStation likely decided to launch Helldivers 2 on Xbox in part due to the data above. Xbox players just seem to love shooters, and it was likely habits forged in the fires of Xbox 360’s Call of Duty marketing, and its Halo and Gears of War-heavy games line-up. Some of 2025’s biggest shooters, including Borderlands 4, ARC Raiders, and even on-going shooters like Apex Legends come up close to neck-and-neck for downloads between Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 hardware.
You’d expect the downloads disparity to be far bigger if it directly correlated to each platform’s overall install base.
The habits of Xbox gamers are also reflected in single-player and RPG titles as well, where PlayStation 5 enjoys a much bigger sales gap.
Alinea data suggests games like Elden Ring and Hogwards Legacy perform far better on PlayStation, reflecting user habits per platform. (Image credit: Alinea Analytics)
Data on games like Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 show up far more in-line with the install base gap. Elden Ring’s player base is twice as big on PlayStation for example, and Hogwarts Legacy’s sales base is even bigger.
I think this reflects the fact that PlayStation’s focus on action games, RPGs, and also younger audiences has helped it maintain a broader ownership of genres. Microsoft has been working incredibly hard to win back RPG franchises to the Xbox platform, with games like Persona and Final Fantasy launching on Xbox more prominently than ever. It’s a chicken and egg scenario though, probably. Sales of Final Fantasy 16 were reportedly incredibly low on Xbox, as you might expect given that the game launched on practically every other platform before it. Building up an audience for genres dominated by PlayStation, such as RPGs, fighting games, and others, is likely going to continue being an uphill battle for Microsoft.
However, it has certainly over-indexed on the shooter market, and likely racing games too thanks to Forza Horizon. Halo Campaign Evolved and Forza Horizon 6 of course are going to PlayStation this year, but it seems that Sony itself can’t ignore Xbox user’s penchant for shooters. Helldivers 2 is still charting on Xbox as of writing, and Sony will also publish Bungie’s extraction shooter Marathon on Xbox in the future as well.
Platforms seem to have unique user habits
Xbox’s shooter audience are so engaged that even PlayStation couldn’t ignore it. (Image credit: Xbox, PlayStation & Arrowhead)
It would require more research and there are other angles to consider here, but it does seem on the face of it that each platform has genres that simply perform better. Steam has cornered the indie games market without a doubt, but also potentially “variety” gamers who play lots of different titles.As PlayStation and Xbox doubled down on cash cows like Fortnite and Call of Duty, Steam quietly curated an audience of players willing to buy dozens of games per year of all shapes and sizes, and now reaps the benefit. I suspect PlayStation has also cornered a younger-skewing audience, which likely precludes a lot of their users from many of the “Mature” rated shooters.
Variety is key to any platform I would argue, though. Xbox has been working hard to ensure Xbox Game Pass launches, for example, are incredibly varied by genre and scope. But therein lies another issue — if Microsoft is curating an audience of players who wait for subscription inclusions, it might decrease the amount of users willing to actually buy games outright. You could also argue that Steam has created a similar issue, training users to wait for its legendary sales events, as opposed to buying things new.
Either way, it does seem like there’s still a ton of money to be made on Xbox when the right games come along for the platform. The irony here perhaps is that Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is one of Xbox’s biggest growth opportunities, is arguably not the best way to play online multiplayer shooters. Perhaps it’s through this vector that Microsoft can find its audience for RPGs? Microsoft’s big RPG Fable is being revealed in full at the January Xbox Developer_Direct, and I suspect Xbox Cloud Gaming will be a very popular way to access the game.
Time will tell. The data is fun, nonetheless. What do you reckon? Let us know in the comments!
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