The Xbox Series X is the most popular console, at least according to Twitter users

By Sean Endicott
published

The Xbox Series X proved popular with Twitter users, as did Forza Horizon 5.

Xbox Series X Controller
Xbox Series X Controller (Image credit: Matt Brown | Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • The Xbox Series X is the most popular game console, according to a recent study.
  • The study used Twitter sentiment analysis to determine how people online feel about various consoles and games.
  • FIFA 22, Final Fantasy XIV, and Forza Horizon 5 are the three most popular games in the same study.

Microsoft's Xbox Series X is more popular than Sony's PlayStation 5, at least according to recent Twitter analysis (via MobileWins). Green Gaming looks at several aspects of gaming consoles each year, including power usage, player counts, platform compatibility, and the most popular games. It also uses Twitter sentiment analysis to determine how gamers feel about consoles and games.

Twitter sentiment analysis looks at tweets referencing a term in question and then assisgns a positive or negative score.

This year's findings show that the Xbox Series X had more positive reviews from fans than the PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and several older consoles. The PlayStation 4 received the most negativity online, according to Green Gaming's analysis.

When it comes to the most popular games, FIFA 22 drew the best impressions online. Final Fantasy XIV came in second place, followed by Forza Horizon 5.

Halo Infinite drew quite a bit of criticism from fans, but as the title only came out in November 2021, results could be skewed. The game earned positive scores from reviewers, but the list of known bugs and launch issues for Halo Infinite is relatively long. These will likely be ironed out over time, which would lead to more positive feedback from players.

The study also looks at which consoles lead to the most pollution; the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 5 round out the top three in that category. The Xbox One pollutes the least and is in eighth place among major consoles. The Xbox Series X and Series S sit near the middle at number five out of eight. When measuring pollution, sales figures are taken into account.

The three games that caused the most pollution are League of Legends, Fortnite, and Apex Legends.

Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

13 Comments
  • And yet sales figures show an entirely different picture. Proving, once again, that the world view provided by Twitter does not actually reflect reality.
  • Sales figures are supply-constrained - meaning demand exceeds supply. Meaning demand is immaterial - what determines sales figures is how much can be supplied Anyways, I wouldn't put too much stock in that Green Gaming analysis. The same analysis also stated that the least popular video game was Halo Infinite, lol
  • Indeed.
    Hardware sales figures are unavoidably misleading: PS5 numbers tally up the PS5 digital with the drive model which is fair since they are identical except for the optical disk. Xbox numbers are split between the SX and SS which is again fair as they are different hardware-wise, if not software-wise. Then there are the supply constraints. Which impacted XBOX more because MS was, for at least half the year, underproducing consoles as a good portion of their limited supply of silicon wafers were going to production of Anaconda chips for the xCloud servers. Once that need was met, they were free to allocate their wafers solely to consoles but they didn't all go to the SX. A good portion, conceivably as much as half, went to SS production. Which is why the SS has been the most readily available console this holiday season (smaller chip = more SOCs per wafer, at least 2X). Beyond that, twitter isn't the best place to look for console popularity data since the primary customers for Nintendo and XBOX SS are unlikely to be active in the twitworld. Both target families shopping for boxes based on games, not specs. Hardware merits aren't high on their list of prioritiex. Microsoft has made it clear their primary goal isn't to sell consoles but to sell g ames and gamepass.
    For now, that means, in order of importance: - cloud gaming via browser
    - cloud gaming via android
    - cloud gaming on the XBOX PC app
    - cloud gaming on XBOX 1
    - the cheapest next gen console, geared to 1080p TVs, which make 70% of the active TVs
    - the most powerful console, bar none, to showcase the software and appeal to reviewers, influencers, and darly adopters.f
    (By next year, all will pale before cloud gaming on smart TVs.) So the SX is meant to serve as the flagship and driver of online discussion, hence its popularity on twitter, but at the checkout counter (online or B&M) SS is likely too outsell the SX by a lot, as Spencer said last year. Online discussion popularity drives *some* sales (a lot) but $299 and $10 a month will drive way more.
  • What are you talking about? The console is still instantly selling out.
  • So is the competition.
    But they actually have product to sell.
    And that's after outselling PS5: https://www.businessinsider.com/nintendo-and-xbox-outsell-ps5-in-critica... And those numbers dpn't come from twitter.
    I'd still like to see a breakdown by model to see how SS is doing.
  • 1. Both consoles are selling well.
    2. Sales figures alone don't tell the entire story. You can stop projecting your fanboy insecurities now.
  • Currently more Microsoft and Nintendo consoles are being sold than Sony this quarter (with Nintendo leading the pack) however overall PS5 has sold more than Series X/S by a fairly decent chunk however it's nowhere near the Switch. Basically any company can look like it's out on top depending on how they choose to present their data... so long as two of them completely ignore Nintendo.
  • Well it's just a study of twit users, not of all humanity
  • "The three games that caused the most pollution are League of Legends, Fortnite, and Apex Legends." The last two are responsible for more methane than all global cow farts combined.
  • Still not as much hot air as woke Twitter users 😂
  • Regarding this article I'm not at all surprised that Xbox is trending on Twitter, this has been a strong year for the system, big name developer acquisitions, actual footage for many highly awaited games, two big game drops in Halo and Forza. So yeah, I'm not surprised at all that people are talking about it more than the rest.
  • Sounds like PlayStation users are too busy enjoying their consoles to tweet.
  • The last I heard, you can't really get one. So, unless there's verifiable data about what people WISH they could buy, I call BS on this story.