It's not just Xbox: Total U.S. console sales are down

Hardware sales are down across all platforms, not just Xbox.

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A few days ago, Microsoft announced that Xbox hardware sales were down -31% to $430 million, the lowest point of the Xbox Series generation. It's not just Xbox, though. All of the Big 3--Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox--saw console sales dips in the United States.

According to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, U.S. spending on gaming hardware was down by 32% in March 2024, and sales were also down a sizable 24% across the entire Q1 period.

"March video game hardware spending fell 32% when compared to a year ago, to $391 million. PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Switch spending each declined a minimum of 30% year-on-year. Hardware spending finished the first quarter down 24% versus the first quarter of 2023," Piscatella wrote on Twitter.

While the PlayStation 5 dominated sales and revenue throughout both Q1 and the month of March, the Xbox Series gen was actually #2 in revenue, likely due to more consumers choosing the more expensive Xbox Series X models.

"PlayStation 5 led the hardware market in unit and dollar sales during both March and the first quarter. Nintendo Switch once again finished 2nd in unit sales across both time periods while Xbox Series ranked 2nd in dollars," Piscatella said in the thread.

Both Nintendo and Sony had revised their total console shipment targets for this fiscal year, but neither have published their earnings reports for the Jan - Mar period.

Elsewhere in the sales update thread, Piscatella notes that the games industry "really could have used new Nintendo hardware this year."

The new Switch 2 isn't expected until 2025.