Xbox One Sales Double, PS4 Still on Top
Back in mid-May, Microsoft announced that it would offer Xbox One consoles without the Kinect peripheral, dropping the system’s price by a hundred bucks to parity with that of the PlayStation 4 from Sony. The cut went into effect on June 9, and apparently the experiment has been a great success: Microsoft announced this week that Xbox One sales doubled in June. Huzzah!
The “doubled” figure is related specifically to hardware sales in May, but doesn’t get any more specific than that. It’s not surprising, though, that Microsoft would see a spike in Xbox One sales after dropping its price by a whole 20 percent while simultaneously chucking a peripheral no one really wanted. “You mean you made it cheaper and better at the same time?” gamers said in reaction to the news. “I will buy one of these now.”
Of course, Xbox One’s sales boost wasn’t enough to unseat the new console generation’s king: the PlayStation 4. According to a post on VentureBeat, as of June “the PlayStation 4 was the top-selling console for the sixth month in a row.” That news comes by way of Sony itself, though there’s little reason to doubt its veracity. In short, even when its sales doubled from one month to the next, the Xbox One is still having its lunch eaten by the PlayStation 4.
Of course, the new console generation is still barely underway, so anything could change at a moment’s notice. All it takes is one big game to hit big for a console to start flying off shelves, and these numbers can start to reverse.
For my part, I’ve had a PlayStation 4 since launch. I’ve barely played it. Part of that is because, well, my life’s gotten busy in the last few months, and the other part is simply a lack of compelling games that have made me want to come back again and again. I got Watch Dogs when it came out, and I’ve played it for a few hours, but I still have yet to feel truly drawn in. I’ve also played a round or two of War Thunder, a free-to-play aviation combat game which is dumb fun, but overall I’m still waiting for my purchase of a PS4 to feel justified.
To be completely honest, the game I’ve played the most in the last few months? Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U. What sense does that make?
[Sources: Microsoft, VentureBeat]