Kaz Hirai PlayStation Sony 1

After years of being on top, the PlayStation 4 has now slumped to its fourth NPD defeat in a row – a trend that would probably be worrying Sony if its install base wasn't growing at an accelerated rate globally. The console lost the monthly US hardware contest for October, meaning that it's been a little while since the Japanese giant's box was last on top.

Of course, the numbers do paint a slightly different picture, with the PS4 still commanding a 1.5 million unit lead in America according to inside sources. More to the point, one of the Xbox One's wins was by a margin of just 10,000 units – a figure comfortably accounted for by, say, a single week in Japan.

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But that is putting a slightly positive spin on proceedings, and there's no question that the platform holder, which has dominated the entire generation thus far, will be disappointed to see its system start having its US lead eaten into. It suggests that the PS4 Slim, which launched with very little fanfare, has failed to manage to bridge the gap before the PS4 Pro.

And it's perhaps the first real ball that Sony has dropped since 2013. There are a few things worth keeping in mind before panicking, of course: as mentioned, the PS4 Pro is the big, supercharged elephant in the room, and PlayStation's two big co-marketing partnerships this year – Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Watch Dogs 2 – will factor into the next NPD report.

It'll be interesting to see how Black Friday changes things, because there's no question that Microsoft has been the most aggressive with its pricing for years now. Looking at some of the leaked fliers, the lower production costs of the PS4 Slim don't appear to have tempted Sony into really slashing the price of the system. But then, with the console racing to 50 million units, maybe it doesn't feel that it needs to.

[source uk.ign.com]