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The latest NPD sales report for the United States has the PS4 leading the Xbox One, by almost a 2-to-1 margin in January.
While NPD does not usually release any hard sales figures, NPD analyst Liam Callahan confirmed that PS4 sales lead Xbox One in January, and Sony later confirmed that PS4 sales had almost doubled that of the Xbox One.
The PS4 was launched in November and won that month thanks to a week's head start compared to the Xbox One. The crucial December holiday sales period was won by the Xbox One. But the PS4's surprisingly big lead over the Xbox One in January could be a worrying sign for Microsoft.
Importantly, Sony reported stock constraint issues in North America due to the company stockpiling consoles for the planned Japanese launch of the console in late February. Microsoft reported no such issues, and so had the PS4 not been stock restrained, it might have beat the Xbox One by an even larger margin.
And in software sales, sales of multiplatform games on the PS4 managed to beat the Xbox One for a variety of titles, including Battlefield 4, NBA 2K14, Madden NFL 25. The Xbox One version of Call of Duty: Ghosts was the only one to outsell the PS4 version for games in the top 10.
The Xbox One is priced at $100 more than the PS4 and features weaker hardware. The price difference is due to the Kinect 2.0 motion gaming device included in the box, whereas Sony's motion gaming kit is sold separately. Very few games so far have taken advantage of Kinect 2.0, which appears to have put Microsoft in a weak position in early competition.
Microsoft nevertheless promoted the fact that, when combined with Xbox 360 game sales, the Xbox brand sold more games than any other platform.
While no official figures have been made available for the other consoles, including the Wii U, estimates put PS3 sales above that of the Wii U, with Nintendo's flagship console selling more units this month than Microsoft's Xbox 360.
While NPD does not usually release any hard sales figures, NPD analyst Liam Callahan confirmed that PS4 sales lead Xbox One in January, and Sony later confirmed that PS4 sales had almost doubled that of the Xbox One.
The PS4 was launched in November and won that month thanks to a week's head start compared to the Xbox One. The crucial December holiday sales period was won by the Xbox One. But the PS4's surprisingly big lead over the Xbox One in January could be a worrying sign for Microsoft.
Importantly, Sony reported stock constraint issues in North America due to the company stockpiling consoles for the planned Japanese launch of the console in late February. Microsoft reported no such issues, and so had the PS4 not been stock restrained, it might have beat the Xbox One by an even larger margin.
And in software sales, sales of multiplatform games on the PS4 managed to beat the Xbox One for a variety of titles, including Battlefield 4, NBA 2K14, Madden NFL 25. The Xbox One version of Call of Duty: Ghosts was the only one to outsell the PS4 version for games in the top 10.
The Xbox One is priced at $100 more than the PS4 and features weaker hardware. The price difference is due to the Kinect 2.0 motion gaming device included in the box, whereas Sony's motion gaming kit is sold separately. Very few games so far have taken advantage of Kinect 2.0, which appears to have put Microsoft in a weak position in early competition.
Microsoft nevertheless promoted the fact that, when combined with Xbox 360 game sales, the Xbox brand sold more games than any other platform.
While no official figures have been made available for the other consoles, including the Wii U, estimates put PS3 sales above that of the Wii U, with Nintendo's flagship console selling more units this month than Microsoft's Xbox 360.