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| PS4 Rhombox- |
Sony’s PlayStation 4 is continuing to break sales records, passing 7 million units sold as of April 6. Console sales are so vigorous, in fact, that Sony says it’s still struggling to keep up with demand. Software sales are also very strong, no doubt helped by rave reviews for Infamous Second Son, with 20.5 million games sold as of April 13. Meanwhile, in the Xbox One camp, Microsoft has remained ominously silent, failing to release sales figures since the end of 2013. Presumably, Microsoft was waiting to see if the release of Titanfall would give the Xbox One a healthy bump in sales, perhaps putting it back on a level footing with the PS4. Now, however, more than a month after Titanfall’s release, we have to wonder why Microsoft is still mute on the matter. Are Xbox One sales truly that embarrassing? And if so, can we expect a dramatic price drop or the release of an Xbox One bundle without Kinect?
In a post on the US PlayStation blog, Sony announced that it has sold 7 million units of the PS4 globally up until April 6. In a separate press release, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House said: ”The PS4 journey has just begun, and although we are still facing difficulties keeping up with the strong demand worldwide, we remain steadfast in our commitment to meet the needs of our customers, and surpassing the wildest expectations of gamers by delivering new user experiences that inspire and engage.” The press release also had the usual dump of statistics: We’re now up to 135 million uses of the Share button, 4.9 million Twitch and Ustream broadcasts, and 90 million spectate sessions. In a previous announcement, Sony said that Infamous Second Son had sold 1 million copies in nine days of availability — pretty good for a new console with a relatively small user base.
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| Infamous Second Son for the PS4 |
These kinds of figures put the PS4 comfortably in the “runaway success” bracket. Sales are slowing slightly to under a million units a month, but that’s still a lot more than anyone expected. Sony itself had only forecast five million PS4 sales by the end of March, which is why it’s still struggling to meet demand. (Though, anecdotally, we are hearing that most stores have the PS4 consistently in stock.)
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| Xbox One SoC |
Meanwhile, things don’t look so good for Microsoft and the Xbox One. The last solid sales figures were 3 million by the end of 2013, and then 3.9 million shipments to retailers (not sales) by January 23. We previously estimated that the Xbox One was selling around 600,000 units per month at the start of 2014, compared to 1.1 million per month for the PS4. Those sales have almost definitely slowed, but the release of Titanfall in March will have buoyed them up a bit. (Curiously, Microsoft hasn’t released Titanfall’s first-week sales.) I would estimate that Microsoft has probably sold around 5 million Xbox Ones to date. It could be a little lower than that, but I doubt it’s much higher.
The thing is, back at the end of 2013, the gap between the PS4 and Xbox One was fairly small — 4.3 million vs. 3 million — and the gap could be explained away by the PS4′s early launch, lower price, and availability in more territories. Now, six months on, Microsoft doesn’t really have a valid excuse for the Xbox One’s lackluster sales. There’s still the matter of price — but Microsoft can’t really blame anyone other than itself for that.
The uncomfortable truth is probably that the PS4 is simply the better console, and is now well on its way to winning this round of the Console War. If this is the case — and the sales figure silence definitely implies it — then we can probably expect a very dramatic announcement from Microsoft in the next month or two. If Microsoft wants to turn this around, then a big price cut (probably by shipping the console without Kinect) is the only real solution. The company needs to move quickly, too: If the PS4′s lead continues to grow, third-party developers will begin to target their games specifically at the PS4, resulting in a rather rapid game over for the Xbox One.
Source: ExtremeTech
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