While the exact sales figures still were not provided, the company's admission could mean Xbox One has sold about 58 million units in its lifetime.
Microsoft has refused to release console sales information for years leaving us unaware of how well or poorly Xbox consoles sold compared to their competitors, PlayStation and Nintendo. But now, new court documents revealed that Sony's PlayStation 4 has sold "twice as many" units as Microsoft's Xbox One.
In the documents submitted to Brazil’s national competition regulator CADE (first spotted by Game Luster), Microsoft admitted that PS4 has significantly outsold its own Xbox One.
"Sony has surpassed Microsoft in terms of console sales and installed base, having sold more than twice as many Xbox [consoles] in the last generation," Microsoft said.
In March, Sony revealed that during its lifetime, PS4 has managed to sell a total of 117.2 million units. And while Microsoft still didn't provide the exact figures on Xbox One sales, the company's admission could mean that the console could have sold around half of the amount PS4 has sold, that is about 50-60 million units.
This figure comes in line with former industry analysts' predictions. In 2020, Ampere Analysis estimated that sales of the Xbox One sat at 51 million at the end of Q2 2020. Meanwhile, Nintendo Switch lifetime sales currently reach around 111 million units and are likely to surpass the sales of PS4 later this year.
Microsoft’s admission of weak Xbox One sales comes as part of the same document that contains a claim from Microsoft that Sony is supposedly paying "blocking rights" to developers in order to prevent their games from being added to Xbox Game Pass.
You can find the full document here. Please note it's in Portuguese. Also, don't forget to join our Reddit page and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.