The major digital transition
- by Ben Kerry
Circana’s Mat Piscatella has released some new sales figures today regarding spending in the US gaming industry, revealing intriguing statistics for Xbox in 2025. According to the data analytics firm, 75% of Xbox console sales this year thus far have been for digital-only models, including the white Xbox Series X and all Xbox Series S variations.
Since the new digital-only Xbox Series X console was only launched late last year, this marks the first complete quarter in which Microsoft’s primary current-generation console has contributed to digital-only console sales. Prior to this, exclusively the less powerful Series S accounted for digital-only hardware sales.
This emerging trend is quite fascinating, as it indicates that the newer, more affordable Series X model has potentially affected Microsoft’s overall Xbox Series X sales. Naturally, without direct statistics from Microsoft, we cannot ascertain the complete breakdown of console SKUs, but this digital-only distribution certainly appears substantial for 2025 up to now.
Moreover, there is some slightly more upbeat news for Xbox regarding overall year-on-year console sales. Despite showing a decline of 9% in March 2025 hardware sales compared to March 2024, it represents a much smaller decrease than others observed recently and was the least significant drop among all major platform providers last month.
In any case, we believe that strong digital-only console sales will be perceived positively by Microsoft, as it encourages users to utilize its digital store and increases the appeal of Xbox Game Pass for game access.
Do you own a digital-only Xbox console? Share your thoughts on these new statistics in the comments below.
Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, deeply passionate about action, racing, and shooting games on the Xbox platform. When not gripping an Xbox controller as if his life hinges on it, Ben enjoys listening to music from eras past, watching football on TV, and likely dining out somewhere nearby.
