Xbox Was Outsold by Small Family Console During Black Friday Week in US
You should keep an eye on NEX Playground.
Nex
Xbox boss Phil Spencer admitted that the device lags behind PS5 and Switch in the console war, but, apparently, these are not its only competitors.
According to Mat Piscatella from the Circana analytics company, during the Black Friday sales week that ended on November 29, Xbox was outsold by NEX Playground, a comparatively obscure family console, in the US.
He said that PlayStation 5 accounted for 47% of Black Friday hardware unit sales, followed by Nintendo Switch 2 (24%), and the NEX Playground (14%). He doesn't name the numbers for Xbox, but they are lower than 14%, as one might conclude.
NEX Playground is a small motion-controlled console, like Kinect, released in 2023, offering games like Fruit Ninja, Whac-a-Mole, and Zumba Fitness Party. It has been growing in popularity, briefly outselling even PS5 in the US a week before Black Friday (via VGC).
The Game Business co-founder Christopher Dring noted that "Xbox was not competitive with its pricing over Black Friday, and it seems like there isn’t a huge amount of stock in circulation," so perhaps Xbox is truly moving away from its hardware business to focus on other ventures.
Meanwhile, in the UK, PS5 had a 62% share of the console market, with Xbox Series S and X accounting for 10% of the market, and Nintendo Switch 2 taking 23%.
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