Analyst predicts PS5 & Series X will sell less than current gen with Sony in the lead

Games industry analyst Piers Harding-Rolls has predicted that the upcoming PS5 & Xbox Series X generation will sell less units than the current generation. 

Reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the next-gen consoles are set to sell considerably less units than the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Harding-Rolls states that the market for console gaming will remain large, but will continue to decline as good generation has.

“While the market is still substantial and likely to be consistently large at least during the next console life cycle, what has been proven over the last decade is that even with significant resources ploughed into growing adoption on a global basis, including more serious entry into a series of additional territories, substantial hardware unit sales growth for Sony and Microsoft combined has not materialised,” explained the analyst.

As for the sales predictions for each console, Harding-Rolls believes that the generation will begin with a near even start for both PS5 & Xbox Series X, but the generation will begin to widen the gap with Sony taking the lead.

For a pure numbers estimation, Harding-Rolls claims that he expects PlayStation 5 to sell 66 million units in four years with a competitive 37 million for Xbox Series X. The analyst didn’t state how important the addition of the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition SKU or the yet-to-be-announced Xbox Lockhart console will affect sales.