One of the biggest rumors that have circulated in recent days indicates that Xbox It will become a third-party publisher, so this could be its last generation of consoles. Although there is no official information at the moment, A new report has revealed that production of the Series X|S would have stopped completely.
According to a new report by Business Today China, demand in electronic products during the 2023 Christmas season was lower than expected. Although the report is focused on the poor performance of laptops, it also mentions a substantial decrease in the production of the PlayStation 5, as well as a total stoppage in the manufacturing of the Xbox Series
Sources close to the media have indicated that Sony and Microsoft reported sales below expectations in the winter season, which caused a larger than expected inventory of consoles. To avoid the accumulation of more hardware, Sony would have notified Hon Hai, which is responsible for the assembly of the PS5, as well as Delta Electronics and Lite-On, its component manufacturers, that the production of this console would be reduced by a million pieces a month, to only 500 thousand during the first quarter of this year.
For its part, Microsoft would have informed Pegatron and Hon Hai, which are responsible for the assembly of the Xbox Series X|S, as well as Qundian and Lite-On, responsible for the production of components and chips, that The production of its console would be completely suspended during the first quarter of 2024.
It is currently unknown what the next step will be for the two companies once this quarter comes to an end. While Sony can easily summarize the high production of the PS5, it is somewhat notable that they had to lower their expectations. Let us remember that at the end of 2023 it was revealed that The PS5 had reached 50 million units soldand the launch of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, accompanied by a package that includes a console, they helped substantially the sales of this hardware, although it seems not as much as Sony would have liked.
As for Microsoft, returning to normal console production is an even more complicated issue. With rumors that Xbox as a brand could disappear, Suspending console production could be the beginning of the end for this company. Let's remember that those responsible for Halo have given greater weight to services and the cloud, so a console, which is not even being sold, could be forgotten to focus on bringing its experiences to as many platforms as possible.
Like Sony, Xbox gave us a title last year that, in theory, should have sold consoles, and it is starfield. The new Bethesda game was promoted as the great Series X|S exclusive for 2023, and while it is true that this title had a good launch, reports revealed that this did not affect sales of the console. Considering that the company has placed great emphasis on Game Pass and the cloud, many people didn't see the need to buy a specific piece of hardware for gaming starfield, especially when the title also arrived on PC day one through this subscription service.
At the moment we do not know what exactly will happen with Microsoft and the Xbox Series X|S. However, Rumors have indicated that the company behind Windows would not yet be ready to pay the console market, since it has been mentioned that a completely digital Series X would arrive in the second half of the year, although these plans could change. On related topics, Xbox could be working on a portable console. Similarly, the FTC attacks Microsoft for recent layoffs.
Editor's Note:
This bodes poorly for Xbox. It is one thing to reduce console production due to a period of low sales, and another to completely stop hardware production. Although it is true that sales of the Xbox Series X|S are lower compared to the Switch and PS5, there are still people who are willing to buy one of these Xbox consoles.
Via: IconEra
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