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Comment by alpaca128 | Hacker News Reader

Wow, so Series X and Series S have each outsold both PS5 variants put together. It would have made sense to me if both Xbox models together had more sales because the Series S is simply the cheapest option, but this is different.

Sounds like a supply chain issue, assuming the Xbox didn't suddenly explode in popularity in Japan compared to previous generations. Maybe Sony yet again prioritizes the foreign market like it did with the PS4 by delaying the launch in Japan compared to the rest of the world?

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It’s really simple - just like everywhere else it’s still impossible to easily buy a PS5.

It’s kinda absurd Sony can’t control there own distribution and that virtually every PS5 they make ends up in scalpers hands.

Xbox was impossible to buy locally until like 2 weeks ago in the US.

This article is really about who can pump out more units, not which has more customer demand. It needs to be in stock everywhere to really get a customer demand picture..

I noticed that the X was out of stock everywhere but the S seemed to have been in stock for a while. When I bought mine a few months ago the store had about 5-6 in stock and the clerk said this was par for the course with other stores.

Yah also that. I think a lot of people had last generation consoles, and the S was not a clear win for those users. For people that actually wanted 4k, you need an X.

I just randomly checked my local target on the app once a week or so, and finally got an X about a month ago. It took me almost a year to find it (I refuse to participate in the secondary market). However I checked randomly yesterday, and my local target had 2 Xs in stock, so must finally be making it.

The Series S is limited to 1440p, and I think most gamers want 4K support, which is why the S is so easy to find. It was good of Microsoft to try and create a more affordable version, but I think they overestimated how many people were willing to live with the 1440p limitation.

> I think they overestimated how many people were willing to live with the 1440p limitation.

The numbers in the article suggest otherwise. Or at least that people would rather have a 1440p console than nothing, and not everyone has a 4k screen yet.

I got a Series S because it's cheap and I didn't want to go through all the waiting. Works pretty fine, aside from the bad OS. Also game graphics are improving at a much slower pace nowadays, I don't see a reason to go for better hardware. Most games look pretty fine to me, and things that looked terrible 5 years ago are still not much better.

Pretty much what your are saying, every produced unit (xbox series x or ps5) finds a buyer instantly. It can only be supply chain issues.

>>It’s kinda absurd Sony can’t control there own distribution and that virtually every PS5 they make ends up in scalpers hands.

That hasn't been the case for a long time now(at least here in UK). I wouldn't say it's consistently in stock, but 6 out of 7 days of the week you can just buy one somewhere, at RRP. Recently even deals started to appear - RRP with a game or a controller thrown in. Recent restock at Argos and Amazon had stock for literally 2 weeks before they ran out - either they finally caught up with production, or the demand has dried up somewhat. I think it's the latter - everyone I know who wanted a PS5 has already bought one.

We're talking a week's worth of sales here, so lifetime numbers are different. Nevertheless, Microsoft Xbox Series X|S seems to be around 80% of the PS5 sales, which isn't bad - it could be that Sony did a better job of securing manufacturing capacity.

In any event, it's great to have healthy competition in game consoles.

And Sony started manufacturing earlier than Microsoft. So at launch they had more units available.

Sony reported in June that PS5 is at over 20 million units sold so far, Series S|X together I think are close, at around 15 million.

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