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Sony’s early dominance of the next-gen hardware race in the US shows no sign of abating.
NPD has revealed that PS4 outsold Xbox One in April – that’s the fourth month in a row that Microsoft’s had to settle for second place.
PS4’s actual monthly sales weren’t revealed, although Microsoft said that 115k Xbox Ones were sold in the period. That’s around a third of the machine’s March sales. Note that Xbox 360 never sold as few units in the US in April aside from this year, now it’s up against its younger brother.
That Xbox One price drop can’t arrive soon enough, especially as its early announcement is likely to heavily dent May sales numbers.
More positive for Microsoft is the fact that life to date, sales of PS4 and Xbox One hardware have more than doubled the combined sales of PS3 and 360 hardware through their first six months of sales,” according to NPD analyst Liam Callahan.
PS4 software combined with Xbox One software sales are up over 40% compared to sales of the PS3 and Xbox 360 through their first six months. Wii U software sales were up over last year by over 80%.”
Microsoft separately confirmed that it also sold 71k Xbox 360s and 2.2m 360 games, as well as 447k Xbox One games. The Xbox platform overall still commands the majority of the US market – 53 per cent, to be exact. Xbox One also boasts a very decent 3-to-1 software attach rate.
Sony, meanwhile, says that demand for its machine continues to outstrip supply. Microsoft last month said that was not the case for Xbox One.
Overall, the US games market was up 17 per cent at $580.3m year-on-year with hardware up 76 per cent. In isolation console hardware was up 120 per cent. Software sales fell ten per cent to $227.9.
