It's going to be an interesting week ahead as Sony and Nintendo get pulled back into the fray for another round of sales battling in the on-going console war. But for now, Microsoft gets to rest easy knowing that they've closed the gap to Nintendo, and have gained an ever-so-slight official edge over Sony as far as announced sales go, with their eighth gen console.
The official Xbox News Wire dropped the numbers bomb on the public at large as everyone is gearing up, geared and reeling at the news coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show – which is surprisingly game-centric this year. The post acknowledges that Microsoft has moved more than 3 million SKUs of the Xbox One across 13 countries. Making it their fastest selling home entertainment console yet.
Just so the fanboys don't think I'm pulling numbers out of my chair-sitting butt like Fox News pulls facts out of thin air, you can read the actual quote from Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of marketing and strategy in the Xbox division, Yusuf Mehdi, who stated that...
“Over 3 million Xbox One consoles were sold to consumers in 13 countries before the end of 2013. It’s been incredible to see Xbox One selling at a record-setting pace for Xbox, and we were honored to see Xbox One become the fastest-selling console in the U.S. during our launch month in November.”
Mehdi also stated that the console is consistently been “selling out” across the U.S. – though not quite as much in other regions like the U.K. – as demand for the new generation home console has been “strong”. However, there are some news bits that seem to show that the Xbox One wasn't always sold out during the holiday shopping spree in the capacity that Microsoft might have you believe. The stock capacity also seemed to stay consistent just following the new years holiday as well. Just sayin'.
Anyway, I imagine Mehdi and the gang are about as happy as a pedobear at a pre-school with their projected sales trend, and they're probably jumping around the office with as much excitement as that fake-looking chubby version of Channing Tatum in the main image above.
We won't know for sure what the actual stats of the Xbox One SKU install base looks like but we at least have a rough approximate of where they stand. I'm also quite shocked that Sony has yet to retaliate with numbers of their own. I suspect they could be waiting until they hit the 4 million install-base mark and then announce the numbers in order to one-up the competition. Such a thing would also mark their enclosure on the crown that Nintendo currently holds as the eighth generation console champion. Nevertheless, the sales positions are all very interesting.
Even if we were to go by what we can expect from the current install base of each eighth gen console, we're looking at an estimated total of over 9 million units shared across the Wii U, PS4 and Xbox One. This means that publishers have a fairly stable pool of sales possibilities whenever they plan to launch a multiplatform eighth-gen title. Though I imagine each AAA publisher would probably prefer if that 9 million was an individual number for each platform rather than a shared figure.
Anyway, the numbers game is keeping things interesting and we'll see how well both Microsoft and Sony will be able to keep pace in the weekly (and monthly) sales game in order to catch up to or surpass Nintendo.
