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Industry News
2016/09

Xbox One S Helped Microsoft Beat Sony In August

Microsoft has been desperately trying to get a clean win over Sony and the PS4 for months. They managed to egg out one victory or another during the holidays but after that the PS4 usually goes back to stomping a mudhole into the Xbox One’s rear-end. Well, for two months in a row now the Xbox One has managed to clean house thanks to the Xbox One S.

According to GamingBolt, they picked up quotes from the marketing head of Xbox, Mike Nichols, who mentioned to Venture Beat

“Thanks to our fans and their excitement for new Xbox One games and the recently launched Xbox One S — which is the only console available this holiday with built-in UHD 4K Blu-ray, 4K video streaming, and HDR for video and gaming — Xbox One was the best-selling console in the U.S. in August, according to NPD Group. In addition, we continue to see strong engagement on Xbox Live — the fastest, most reliable gaming network — with total global gaming hours on Xbox One consoles increasing 42 percent year-over-year.”

Unfortunately, no actual hard numbers were released, but that seems to be the order of the day for the NPD when it comes to monthly reports this generation.

According to Venture Beat the summer dry spell is always the worst time of the year for game sales. They believe that this could be considered a fluke on Microsoft’s end unless they can rebound with strong sales in September, October or November. If Sony manages to win back the crowd during the next three months, then Microsoft’s gains may have been for naught… or to put it more aptly, the Venture Beat article states that the PS4’s reign would be under no threat.

Given the less-than-enthused responses from a lot of gamers across the community, it appears as if the PS4 Pro isn’t quite on their wishlist just yet.

In fact, the general chatter seems more negative toward the PS4 Pro than the Xbox One S, and more positive toward the Xbox One S than the PS4 Pro. If this forum chatter and discussion board console warring actually translates into movable SKUs, then I think Sony will need to start worrying because three months in a row for Microsoft could be just the right amount of momentum they need to start focusing heavily on taking back the market with the Xbox Scorpio next year.

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