A Surprising 35% Of People Said This Current Gen Gaming Console Is Their Favorite

Grabbing the latest gaming console from a major retailer (at least, at its MSRP value) can still be a pretty challenging gambit, depending on where you live. The same chip shortages plaguing companies like General Motors and Apple are also responsible for the relatively low supply of highly-demanded consoles like the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X. New consoles are still a tough find in here in the second half of 2022, but things are starting to get a little bit better for shoppers. For example, it may be easier to find an Xbox Series X or Series S due to Microsoft's All Access service.

Not all consoles are designed equally, however, and each of the next-gen consoles is in constant competition with one another with weapons like games, apps, services, and deals. In order to figure out how these consoles are regarded across the general population, we conducted our own survey with over 621 respondents across the United States.

Each of the 621 individual respondents who participated in our survey was asked to vote for one of five next-gen consoles: Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch OLED. It's important to note that you could consider the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X the same console generation — and the same logic could apply to the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch OLED.

Both Microsoft consoles play the same Xbox games and both Nintendo consoles play the same Nintendo Switch games with some variations in performance and visual quality on the user side across all four consoles. If you're unfamiliar, the Xbox Series X can play games in native 4K output, whereas the Series S caps out at a mere 1440p, which is fine for 1440p computer monitors and 1080p HDTVs. Both the Nintendo Switch and its OLED counterpart cap out at 720p resolutions in handheld mode (1080p when docked), but the Switch OLED features a high-contrast OLED panel that makes games look richer in handheld mode.

With those explanations out of the way, here are the results of our survey: 24.32% (151) of our 621 respondents voted for the Xbox Series X in contrast to 10.79% (67) of our respondents who voted for the Xbox Series S. Responses were higher for the Nintendo Switch, which earned 24.80% (154) of the total vote share in addition to 5.48% (34) votes for the Nintendo Switch OLED. Finally, the PlayStation 5 came out on top with 34.62% (215) of the total votes, making it the most popular next-gen console around.

If we consider the idea that the PS5 vote includes both the standard and the Digital edition, we could also combine the votes for the other consoles. If we did that, we'd have 218 votes for Xbox (35%) and 188 votes for Nintendo Switch (30%). So, depending on how you reckon, you could instead say the Xbox Series X and S grabs a narrow victory — and the Switch is in last place, no matter how you view it.