PlayStation is outclassing Xbox, but that might work in its favour

PlayStation is on a stormer now, springing from a very strong performance in 2022. Of course, God of War: Ragnarök contributed to a large portion of that, as well as the popularity of PlayStation Plus.

On that topic, February's PlayStation Plus titles are OlliOlliWorld, Evil Dead: The Game, Mafia: Definitive Edition and Destiny 2's Beyond Light DLC, and you can claim these today. Following the statement from an industry expert that PlayStation has been "crushing" the competition, it's now been calculated that last year Sony pocketed $24.4 billion whereas Microsoft made $15.5 billion from their individual games divisions. That's a discrepancy of $8.8 billion for those who ditched mental math as soon as it was acceptable to do so. Which was, of course, the second you graduated high school.

Check out Starfield, which is set to launch some time this year only on PC and Xbox consoles, below!

While this all sounds like sad news for Microsoft, these admissions might actually serve to facilitate its acquisition of Activision. In the latest Competition & Markets Authority report on the provisional findings, Microsoft asserted that PlayStation was twice the size of Xbox in terms of the global installed console base in 2021. It also added that in the United Kingdom, Xbox saw a share of 30-40% of the installed console base whereas PlayStation accounted for 40-50% and Nintendo made up the remaining 20-30%.

New data in the CMA response to Xbox’s Activision deal

✅ Global console hardware share in 2021:
▶️ Xbox: 10-20%
▶️ PlayStation: 40-50%
▶️ Nintendo: 30-40%

✅ PlayStation has sold twice as many consoles as Xbox globally
✅ PlayStation has more than 2x the monthly users as Xbox pic.twitter.com/kI79cPgSxR

— Hunter 🎮 (@NextGenPlayer) February 9, 2023

"Microsoft further submitted that PlayStation had more than double the [monthly average users] of Xbox globally," continued the section on the parties' views. While we're over the traditional console wars, the battle has since evolved to target the ecosystems that the two can offer their customers. Microsoft has revealed that it sold Xbox Series consoles at a loss, however, there is an enviable slate of Xbox exclusives on the horizon.

Starfield, Redfall, Forza Motorsport, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl, State of Decay 3 are all on the cards and these could turn the tide in Microsoft's direction. We'll have to see what the CMA says about those.