2
It’s NPD week in the world of video games and so that means plenty of companies are going to be out there touting their impressive sales numbers and chart rankings.
It’s NPD week in the world of video games and so that means plenty of companies are going to be out there touting their impressive sales numbers and chart rankings. In the past 24 hours alone we have learned that Titanfall was the best selling gamein March and that Sony has sold through (to gamers) some 7 million PS4ssince launch, but we had yet to hear anything from Microsoft’s camp.
Now, however, Microsoft has come out to reveal sales numbers for the Xbox One and while they aren’t as strong as the PS4’s, they are still ahead of the Xbox 360…potentially. Allow us to explain.
According to Microsoft, they have shipped a total of 5 million Xbox One units, but those units haven’t necessarily made their way to consumers. There is a major difference between the use of “shipped” and “sold” when talking about console sales, chiefly that one means the unit is sitting on a consumer’s shelf and the other means it’s sitting on a retailer’s shelf.
Either way, if demand is high enough that Microsoft has had to ship out 5 million+ Xbox Onesthat means the console is selling extremely well. In fact, as Microsoft explains, the current-gen console is outpacing its predecessor, the Xbox 360, by about 60%.
Microsoft also reveals that gamers are spending an average of 5 hours per day on the Xbox One and they estimate about 1 billion hours have been spent on Xbox One game playing and app usage since launch. It would be interesting to know how much of that time is spent using t he console’s TV functionality, but Microsoft did not reveal any of that info. And finally, Microsoft revealed that the Xbox One carries an attach rate of 2.9 gamers per console, which is nearly equal to the PS4’s attach rate of 2.93.
With all of the global launchesout of the way for both the Xbox One and PS4, the numbers are starting to become a little easier to read. There’s no denying that, even though the console is certainly selling well, the Xbox One is trailing the PS4 by a significant margin, perhaps one larger than even these numbers are letting on considering the use of “shipped” and not “sold.”
In early February, the analysis firm of Wedbush Morgan predictedthat the Sony would finish 2014 with about 12 million PS4s sold and Microsoft would finish with about 9 million Xbox Ones. There’s still plenty of time for some shake-ups and sales boosters in the form of first-party exclusives, but right now it appears WM will be pretty close with their prediction.
Have you made your Xbox One purchase yet? If not, are you waiting for a particular game, a price cut, or are you simply not interested?
Source: IGN