Likewise, Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) said in a statement that its PlayStation 4 “was No. 1 in sales for the sixth consecutive month.” No numbers there either.
Research firm NPD Group Inc. has a number, but it’s not the one we’re looking for. According to NPD combined sales of the two game consoles more than doubled in June to $292.7 million. The bad news for the companies is that software sales fell 3% to $286.8 million. The two consoles are still huge successes, according to an NPD analyst’s statement to Bloomberg:
Combined sales of Xbox One and PS4 are over 80 percent higher than the combined totals for Xbox 360 and PS3 –- an indication of the strength of the start of this new console generation.
Microsoft dropped the Kinect motion sensor from the Xbox One last month and lowered the price of the console to $399 to match the price of the PS4. That pretty clearly helped sales double, but double to what?
In connection with its announcement of massive firings at the company, Microsoft has also said it will close its Xbox Entertainment Studios, an ambitious project launched nearly two years ago to create original programming to help push Xbox as the one device for consumers’ living rooms. When the company launched the Xbox One it focused on the non-gaming features of the device, which Microsoft now believes did nothing but confuse people.
PS4 has many of the same non-gaming features as Xbox One, but it was never marketed as anything but a game console. And while we still don’t have any numbers, PS4 is not likely to be dethroned in June.
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