The Game Business Editor-in-Chief and co-founder Christopher Dring has weighed in on the ongoing discussion surrounding PlayStation and Xbox software sales, claiming that most new AAA single-player games sell significantly more copies on Sony’s platform at launch.
Responding to the debate on social media, Dring said, “A new AAA single-player game on console tends to do about 75% – 80% of its sales (at launch) on PlayStation vs Xbox. That number is often lower when it comes to online multiplayer games.”
His comments came amid wider discussion over platform performance following reports that Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders on PlayStation 5 were substantially ahead of those on Xbox Series X|S.
After one user questioned the basis of the figures, asking whether they included Sony-published games, Game Pass revenue or player engagement, Dring clarified that he was referring specifically to sales rather than player numbers.
“I used the word sales, not players,” Dring wrote. “It’s based on pretty much every data supplier I have access to… I averaged it out. Sony published games aren’t on Xbox.”
Another user asked whether the figures applied only to the UK or Europe and whether they covered both digital and physical sales. Dring responded with a single-word clarification: “Global.”
When another commenter criticised the lack of publicly cited sources, Dring replied, “I am the source.”
The discussion follows the opening of Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders in June 2026, when early retail reports suggested PlayStation 5 pre-orders were outperforming Xbox Series X|S by an estimated 6-to-1 margin. Those figures were widely attributed to Sony’s marketing partnership with Rockstar Games and the PlayStation 5’s substantially larger install base, though Microsoft disputed the claims, arguing they relied heavily on third-party affiliate link data rather than official publisher sales information.
While Dring did not cite specific games or datasets, he stated that his estimate was based on data gathered from multiple industry data providers and represented a global average for AAA single-player console game launches.
