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IGN India: Xbox Series S Was India’s Best-Selling Console in March 2021

Welfare

Welfare

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in.ign.com

Xbox Series S Was India’s Best-Selling Console in March 2021

We can’t believe it either.
in.ign.com in.ign.com

The Xbox Series S and Series X were India's best-selling consoles in March 2021. Now, by and large, India is PlayStation country. To the point where Sony openly admits to having 90 percent of the nation's console market share. However this seems to be changing. According to multiple retailers across India, the best-selling console in March 2021 was the Xbox Series S followed by the Series X. The smaller, less powerful next-generation console from Microsoft launched alongside the more powerful Xbox Series X on November 10, 2020 in India and has seen frequent restocks. Which has not been the case with Sony's PS4 or PS5.
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More at the link, rundown below

Series S #1 / Series X #2
PlayStation has a +90% market share
PS5 and PS4 are sold out
Many intended to buy PS4 but when told that was sold out they picked up the Series S along with being sold on Game Pass
The S is selling the best at both retail and online stores
Series X distribution is erratic, favors major retailers, and is restocked online
 
vivftp

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Oct 29, 2017
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I kept seeing online articles about PS5 release delays in India, I'm guessing that may have been a contributing factor? Someone more knowledgeable can probably provide more insight.
 
The Lord of Cereal

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That's pretty interesting honestly, I'm curious as to how/why MS is getting more restocks in India compared to Sony when supposedly Sony has significantly more stock in general.

Is MS targeting countries that are currently relatively weak Xbox places for more stock maybe?
 
a Master Ninja

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Dec 11, 2017
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Do we know the top 20 most played Xbox games in India like we do with other countries? I'd be curious what it looks like.
 

t26

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Oct 27, 2017
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"Most of them showed up to buy a PS4," says one store executive on the condition of anonymity. "When we told them it was out of stock and explained to them what Game Pass is and how many games they get access to, they picked up a Series S instead."

and also

"It's only sold well because it's what's available," says a manager at a large format electronics chain. "We'd have sold the same — if not more, if we had the Series X instead."
 
Ambient

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Yeah it seems more of a stock issue than people actually wanting a Series S. That being said Series S is a fine little device I love mine.
 

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t26 said:
"Most of them showed up to buy a PS4," says one store executive on the condition of anonymity. "When we told them it was out of stock and explained to them what Game Pass is and how many games they get access to, they picked up a Series S instead."
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Like any sane person would do after hearing about Game Pass.
Good to see people forgetting about "brand royalty" and "locked in a ecosystem".
 
OP
OP
Welfare

Welfare

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Ambient said:
Yeah it seems more of a stock issue than people actually wanting a Series S. That being said Series S is a fine little device I love mine.
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Yeah it's unclear right now what everything would look like if all consoles were 100% available, beyond PS5 selling the most.

Specifying that it was potential PS4 buyers picking up the S is probably a good thing for Xbox. Xbox 360 saw a massive boost in India thanks to the Kinect and I think Game Pass can be a similar value add for Series S/X.

Whoever has supply will sell everything. Some countries it's PS5 with more stock, others Xbox.
 
Sabretooth

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LostCauseUnite! said:
Question: does India's market game preference skew more western or more eastern?
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Pure anecdotal, but hard western. Nintendo has no official presence in India, so its properties are out to begin with. The consoles that are available are expensive as hell, and Japanese games are largely console-based, so in general, I feel like Indians know and play western games much more than Japanese ones.

If I had to think of the people I've talked to, I imagine the most popular Japanese series would probably be DMC.

Of course, if you count PUBG as Eastern, then that skews tremendously towards Eastern by itself.
 

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Interesting! PS supply issues do present an opportunity for Xbox to get in the door for this generation handover. I'm sure the actual numbers involved here are quite small, but mindshare is mindshare.
 
Sedated

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To give some perspective
Sony only shipped around 4k ps5 units in India since launch and on release day to people who preordered. Since then there has been no stock for it.

Xbox isn't doing any better. Dropping few units every other week for series x but still better than sony at supplying. Series s has good supply(stock almost everytime since launch) which is only why it is number 1 because lack of choice. Cant buy ps5 or series x here.
 
LightKiosk

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GamePass is definitely a selling point to be used, but if they walk in and everything else is sold out... kind of makes sense the thing actually in stock would sell lol.

But hey, if Sony's lack of restocks gets Microsoft a larger market share, that's all part of the game and good on Microsoft for restocking regularly.
 
Orion117

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Interesting they are getting a digital only console. Of my friends I am the only one who buys digital games as the games are much cheaper on disc/second hand market.
 
OP
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Welfare

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Matt said:
Interesting! PS supply issues do present an opportunity for Xbox to get in the door for this generation handover. I'm sure the actual numbers involved here are quite small, but mindshare is mindshare.
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For last gen, Xbox One sold over 50K while PS4 sold over 400K. Under 1,500 Xbox One's in the first 4 months while PS4 sold 4,500 in two weeks.

PS5 launch is estimated to be ~4K and isn't expected to get more until next week.

So yeah at best Series S/X are doing thousands a month.
 
vixolus

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I would imagine game pass ultimate / xCloud would be more popular given the mobile market, but also I can see it being hard to breakthrough. You're going up against popular f2p titles with a premium subscription under a brand name that doesn't hold much water in India.
 

LostCauseUnite!

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DukeBlueBall said:
Similar to the rest of the world outside of Japan. I.e a mix.
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Sabretooth said:
Pure anecdotal, but hard western. Nintendo has no official presence in India, so its properties are out to begin with. The consoles that are available are expensive as hell, and Japanese games are largely console-based, so in general, I feel like Indians know and play western games much more than Japanese ones.

If I had to think of the people I've talked to, I imagine the most popular Japanese series would probably be DMC.

Of course, if you count PUBG as Eastern, then that skews tremendously towards Eastern by itself.
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rrost said:
India doesn't have a market outside of some rich kids. Im pretty sure the actual numbers reported here is lower than Japan.
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tusharngf said:
if you look at hardware-wise it's a HUGE PC market.
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Oh wow, I found these interesting and the last extra. India has been more of an enigma to me in the console gaming space. Seems to follow a trend like china where PC is in a huge abundance, iirc China is at like 300M? While consoles are less than 6-7M all combined.

Consoles really are niche in those huge populations, are there any numbers with regards to PC gaming in the India Subcontinent?
 
cakely

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Welfare said:
For last gen, Xbox One sold over 50K while PS4 sold over 400K. Under 1,500 Xbox One's in the first 4 months while PS4 sold 4,500 in two weeks.

PS5 launch is estimated to be ~4K and isn't expected to get more until next week.

So yeah at best Series S/X are doing thousands a month.
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I suspected as much. It seems strange for such a huge country to be such a tiny market for consoles, but it is what it is.
 
RC.

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cakely said:
I suspected as much. It seems strange for such a huge country to be such a tiny market for consoles, but it is what it is.
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Console's are prohibitively expensive over there and only cater to a very small niche segment of the population.
If anything, those previous generation numbers are higher then I expected.
 

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So the Series S sold more because it got restocked and the PlayStation's didn't? That doesn't really tell us much tbh.
 
balohna

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Interesting how a more global market impacts the business. Xbox may never need to "win Japan" if they can find inroads elsewhere. Especially in places like India.

EDIT: not making a value judgment or picking sides in terms of "winning", but I would bias toward a competitive gaming landscape with multiple big first parties.
 
AuroraMusisAmica

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Ah yes, just as the mysterious gypsy woman foretold.

(Glad to see some success for the xbox division. The sales situation, with such a rough supply chain, has been curiously absent)
 
cyrribrae

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Scently said:
It at least tells us that they consider the XSX/S appealing enough as an alternative. It is not necessarily so in some markets.
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This is what I was going to say. You couldn't get someone to buy an Xbox One last gen in many places. There'd be no reason to do so, especially when anyone you could play with had a PS4 (and PS4 might still well be the main target here). The fact that people not only considered Xbox, but indeed walked away with consoles (and you heard that they'd have sold Series X if they had them) and Game Pass subs is hugely encouraging to MS. Compared to those last gen numbers, even a couple thousand this month already dwarfs the sales from the initial launch MONTHS last gen. Nothing to scoff at there.
 
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