Black Friday has just wrapped up, and we now have a look at the top three best-selling consoles in the US, thanks to Circana. There is a bit of a surprise here, and it manages to beat out both PlayStation and Xbox Series hardware. The NEX Playground.
In case anyone was wondering, the Nintendo Switch 2 took the top spot for Black Friday sales.
A missed chance for Xbox?
It is no secret that Microsoft, and therefore Xbox, often seems to miss out. From the closure of Windows Phone, Skype, Kinect, Cortana, and many others, the list is long. Looking at just those examples, it is easy to see how some, or even all of them, could be relevant today, given current market conditions. Cortana sounds cooler than Copilot, Windows Phone could have helped Microsoft build a consistent multi-device experience, and closing Skype in favor of Teams during a global pandemic speaks for itself.
Another oversight could be the decision to kill Kinect. It was a device that was technically impressive and could have been reworked for a younger audience. It would have required foresight from Microsoft, but hindsight is 20/20, and it feels like yet another missed opportunity to add to the list.
Despite not making the US top sales in consoles for Black Friday, however, Microsoft is still putting stock in its hardware, and a recent report from our very own Jez Corden points to them seeking to expand Xbox manufacturing by 4.8 million consoles per year, potentially due to the arrival of GTA 6 late 2026.
With rising prices across the board driven by AI, next-generation hardware is expected to be more expensive than ever, and Xbox’s own Sarah Bond confirms this.
Storage and RAM costs continue to climb, and the closure of Crucial, one of the biggest consumer RAM and Storage manufacturers, only adds to the pressure.
It creates a turbulent moment for a hobby that once felt affordable, but is now becoming increasingly expensive thanks to tariffs and the growing demand for AI-focused components.
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