Microsoft refuses to share official sales numbers for Xbox One, but fortunately we have insiders with knowledge of the numbers from several companies, tracking sales. One of them is Daniel Ahmad who works for Niko Partners as an analyst focused on the digital games market in Asia, who also has access to the NPD numbers (North American sales data) as well as numbers from several European markets.
Ahmad is probably more known as ZhugeEX, which is the name he uses on Twitter and Resetera. He has now shared some insight on the state of Xbox One in a recent forum post, and says this regarding Xbox One during 2018:
"Xbox One had a good year all things considered. Hardware was up YoY thanks to the release of the Xbox One X. Software remains healthy and I really need to stress how large the digital shares are on Xbox compared to other platforms. Global installed base now around 41m."
Ahmad is mainly talking about the US market, but the global sales of 41 million is particularly interesting. As a comparison, the latest official numbers from Sony on Playstation 4 sales is 91,6 million units while Nintendo's hybrid console Switch is expected to be between 25-30 million units. It's also interesting that Ahmad claims digital sales is a whole lot higher on Xbox One compared to the other consoles.
Do you have an Xbox One and if so, do you usually buy your games physically or digitally?