George is the Lead News Editor for TheGamer and an advocate for wearing Psychonauts goggles whenever possible. He tries, bless him.
2025 was reportedly Xbox’s “worst year on record”, with console sales down a whopping 39 percent in the UK alone, a reliable analyst has revealed.
Although Clair Obscur, Death Stranding 2, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and a ton more standout releases made 2025 a great year for anyone looking for good games, it was still a very rough year for the industry. Nowhere was this clearer than with Xbox, which suffered multiple massive rounds of layoffs, hiked the price of pretty much everything, and shifted away from first-party releases.
All of those factors and more put Xbox in a very difficult position throughout 2025, with a lot of long-term fans losing hope for the platform as a whole. It’s not just Xbox’s reputation and fanbase that took a big hit, though, as sales were also down across the board. In fact, Xbox’s console sales were so rough in 2025 that it’s apparently the company’s “worst year on record”.
2025 Was Comfortably Xbox s Worst Year On Record
Will Fable And Forza Be Enough For 2026 To Be Any Better?
Over on Twitter, The Game Business editor-in-chief Christopher Dring shared a sobering summary of the state of Xbox in 2025. According to Dring, sales of Xbox consoles were down a whopping 39 percent in the UK during 2025, which “comfortably” makes it the worst year that the company has ever had on record.
Although Dring didn’t share any Xbox sales statistics for the rest of the world, it’s been widely reported that Xbox console sales are down worldwide. In fact, Circana’s Black Friday data revealed that Xbox consoles were not only outsold by PlayStation and Nintendo, but also by NEX Playground, a niche Kinect-like device.
While it’s sad to see Xbox in such a rough position considering how many great games it released in 2025 (looking at you, Ninja Gaiden 4), it doesn’t really come as a surprise. Xbox has made it very clear that its main focus is getting Xbox Game Pass on as many devices as possible which, when combined with the lack of exclusives, makes buying an Xbox console seem pretty pointless for a lot of consumers.
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Dring does wonder whether Xbox could see a comeback of sorts in 2026 with all the big games that it has planned like Gears of War: E-Day, Fable, and Forza Horizon 6, but it does seem a little unlikely considering how much Xbox has moved away from focusing on consoles.
Bethesda’s latest RPG is likely coming to PS5, but don’t expect a comeback on the scale of Cyberpunk 2077.
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The push for GamePass is taking Xbox games off shelves, you know, the same shelves where the consoles live.
So anyone going to buy an Xbox sees hardware and no software.
Check your local Target or Walmart and see how few Xbox games there are on shelves, if you can find any at all.
2026-01-05 07:27:28
