Xbox One outsold PlayStation 4 by 400 thousand units in November – leaked NPD data

Leaked data allegedly from NPD Group suggests that Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox One video game console outsold its main rival Sony PlayStation 4 system by staggering 400 thousand units in the U.S. in November. If the situation persists, this holiday season will be won by Microsoft, at least in North America.

Based on the data leaked by Gametazer community in a Twitter post, Microsoft sold 1.24 million Xbox One game consoles in the U.S. in November, Sony managed to ship 840 thousand of PlayStation 4 systems last month, whereas sales of Nintendo Wii U totaled 242 thousand units. The numbers correspond to estimates regarding cumulative sales of new-generation consoles and Wii U that KitGuru posted last night.

The situation in the U.S. market of game consoles was completely different last November, when Sony sold 1.138 million PlayStation 4 consoles, whereas Microsoft shipped 909 thousand of Xbox One systems to customers.

As reported, in order to outsell Sony PS4, Microsoft had to throw away Kinect from the XB1 bundle dropping the price to $399, then temporarily cut the price of its Xbox One in the U.S. to $349 (or lower on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in some cases) and put free games (e.g., Assassin’s Creed Unity) into the package with the console. At least partly, the success of Microsoft’s Xbox One could be attributed to direct and indirect price slashes. Given that Xbox One costs $50 less than the PlayStation 4 in the U.S., it is likely that Microsoft's console will outsell Sony's system this holiday season.

The main question right now is whether Microsoft has reversed the trend and Xbox One will be a new top-selling new-generation game console in the U.S., or the system will only be a caliph for an hour and will be dethroned by Sony’s PlayStation 4 in the coming months. It looks like to remain on top Microsoft needs to keep the price of its Xbox One lower compared to its rival. Unfortunately, it is unclear how much money the software giant loses selling the system for $349 in retail and whether such a way of keeping Xbox One popular is acceptable for the company.

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KitGuru Says: Keeping in mind the rumours about revamped version of Xbox One with lower-cost system-on-chips and simplified internal design, it looks like Microsoft is indeed exploring ways to cut-down Xbox One’s manufacturing costs and slash its retail price.

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