Xbox just achieved an unexpected major milestone over PS5

The Xbox Series S console sold more units than the PlayStation 5 in Japan last week, marking the first time Microsoft has beaten Sony in the country for eight years.

This was confirmed in new sales data (via Famitsu), which confirmed that the Xbox Series S (without the more powerful Xbox Series X taken into account) shifted 6,120 consoles during the week of May 9th, 2022. The PS5, meanwhile, managed to sell 2,963 units while the Xbox Series X was purchased only 105 times. 

Naturally, stock issues play a massive factor here, yet it's an incredibly rare milestone as Xbox has only managed to outsell PlayStation in its home country less than 10 times in history. The last time this happened was during the launch of the Xbox One during the first week of September in 2014. 

It should be noted that the PS5 did amass 46,415 sales in the two weeks prior (again via Famitu) with Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X selling less at 10,610 and 3,508, respectively.  

Xbox historically has struggled in Japan with Sony and Nintendo dominating the market for decades. Is this just a one-off or could further stock issues lead to more players in the country making the move to Microsoft? Affordability is another factor to consider, with the digital Xbox Series S being notable cheaper than a PS5 and an Xbox Game Pass subscription giving users access to 100s of games without further purchases. 

The PS5 has sold approximately 17.3 million consoles since launching in November 2020, while the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X have sold around 14 million combined units globally. Nintendo Switch more recently surpassed the total lifetime sales of the PlayStation 4 with 107.65 million consoles sold. Unless stock issues are solved, it's unlikely that PS5 or Xbox will reach anywhere near this number.  

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