And just like that, normal service has been resumed. Microsoft had started to slowly chip away at the PlayStation 4's sizeable lead in the United States with a handful of minor victories, but on the back of Sony's 50 million unit milestone announcement, the platform holder has now confirmed that it's won the all-important November NPD report.
This success was very likely aided by the release of the PS4 Pro at the start of the month, though it's worth remembering that the Japanese giant declared this Black Friday as the most successful in the brand's history, so those PS4 Slim discounts likely played a part as well. Frighteningly for the competition, the console will drop to $249.99 again this weekend.
We don't know exactly how many systems Sony sold in America during the month, but we do know that as of 30th September its install base worldwide was at 47.4 million. This figure had rocketed to 50 million as of 6th December, so we can surmise that it sold a whopping 2.6 million consoles globally in a teensy two month period. Incredible pace.
[source venturebeat.com]
Comments 20
With The Last Guardian out and The Last of Us Part 2 announced it may well win December too.
@adf86 The $249.99 deal will be a bigger driver.
The impressive thing about this is that they were much more aggressive on Black Friday in Europe compared to USA. It must be an absolute massacre globally.
Xbox is also doing that #250 deal ,but its not enough to stop a pro at the top of his game.
I also think we're starting to see the PS4 Slim find its place now. It launched a bit expensive, but it's found its groove a bit better globally now. I imagine they'll get it down to $199.99 next year, which will be enormous.
@get2sammyb PSVR launched also. My brain tells me nobody would buy PSVR unless they already had a PS4 years ago, but I suppose there could have been a few holdouts not into console gaming that tried PSVR and had to have one, so they bought both. Maybe LeBron bought sets for everyone in his posse.
And I'm not opposed to Xbox, I see just as many Xbox One commercials on TV as I do PS4, but Sony seems to have the zeitgeist at the moment w/ the Slim, Pro and PSVR. Next year will see what Scorpio can bring. And Switch, b/c Fallon says so, but this year it's all Sony.
I guess Microsoft have finally run out of cheap original Xbox ONE's to sell for $1 it seems
@rjejr nope, psvr launched in October and was sold out in October so nothing to do with November numbers.
I bought two Uncharted 4 Slim bundles at $230 each on Black Friday.
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi I didn't realize it was sold out everywhere, I've seen a few on store shelves. But even if it was sold out, I still think it would have helped PS4 by being marketed so much. Buy a PS4, get PSVR eventually. But an Xbox, get another Gears of War game. Buy a Wii U, well don't buy a Wii U. Any marketing done for PSVR is basically marketing done for PS4.
Probably not a lot of PSVR sold alongside PS4 as I originally said, but I sitll think it helped w/ the overall sense of Sony being everywhere and PS4 being the "it" console of the moment.
And this was before the Knack 2 announcement. They should have December on lock.
The Pro launched, which I'm sure some diehards picked up right away and then there were some great deals on the PS4 slim for the fence sitters who don't care about high-end and just want an in to this generation at as low a cost as possible. MS had shot it's big bullets for the holiday season in the months prior and PS4 had the marketing deals for Call of Duty and Watch Dogs 2. Reports were that Xbox One actually took Black Friday but Cyber Monday is quickly becoming just as important a shopping day and when it was reported that this Cyber Monday was bigger than Black Friday this year, and that Sony won it, I figured the NPDs would go to Sony as well. December will be interesting as both companies make that final push for Christmas sales. $250 for PS4, which has a fantastic looking lineup for the next few years, it doesn't get better than that.
Does November typically shift more units then December? If not Sony are going to fall well short of that predicted 60million units by March 31st.
I wasn't in the market for a new console over Black Friday, but I did almost pick up an 500GB XBO for £179 just to play Ori. The deciding factor was the need for another subscription, not for Ori, but to not limit myself.
That's why I think the Switch will be a far greater threat to MS than Sony, because to me it seems like a much better secondary console.
It'll be interesting to see how the NPD shakes out once all parties have played their hands. Unless MS makes it clear that Scorpio marks the next generation of Xbox & will have it's own exclusives, it'll have the same effect as the PRO- appealing to the hardcore (to a greater extent).
@Fight_Teza_Fight No December will be a huge month, too. I wouldn't count them out of hitting that target just yet.
According to various other sites, Xbox One took Black Friday - at least in America. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of sales - was the PS4 Pro the biggest selling individual console or was it the Xbox One S with the PS4 Pro and PS4 slim combining enough to take top spot? I wouldn't be surprised if the Pro was the best selling console of November but I wouldn't be surprised if the Xbox One S was 2nd with the Slim lagging well behind. I know the Slim is relatively cheap but its not offering as much 'value' for the money (imo) as the other two consoles. The Pro with the improvements to gaming and the XB1s with its 4k HDR Bluray and cheaper than a dedicated player too. The Slim has been out since September and hasn't had the sales impact that the XB1s has - maybe because most people had a PS4 and/or waiting for the Pro.
I fully expected Sony to take top spot with console sales for November. I don't think anyone would be surprised by that. I even said as much in September and October when MS were enjoying the lead. If Sony are struggling to meet demand for the Pro though, December could be an interesting month as far as sales are concerned. Will the Xbox One S prove to be more popular or will Sony get enough Pro's out to keep them at the top this month?
No doubt after PSX the future for Playstation 4 is bright.
I'm glad Sony is actually staying competitive, and not just resting on its laurels because it has the lead globally.
I get the feeling Microsoft will be on top in December's NPD, they're really bringing out the deals.
The best news is Sony hitting 50 million units sold. That is friggin' impressive.
It is good to see PS4 continually doing so well, I am only interested because it usually locks down more exclusive software in these console cycles. I picked up a PSVR in Nov, PS4 Pro will be my next purchase, I'll add a +1 to that count for Dec.
There is an unconfirmed report that the PS4, PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro combined sold 1.1m units in November with the PSVR selling 68k units in the same time frame. According to this report MS sold 1m Xbox Ones in November.
It seems that the battle was very close but I have read that PSVR sales predictions have been greatly scaled back in recent weeks and if these figures are accurate, its easy to see why.
Of course some of this maybe down to availability of the Pro and PSVR headset as we have heard that these are sold out in places. We don't know how many units they had - its easier to sell out if you only have 5-10 Pros/PSVR headsets compared with 100+ other consoles - especially if these companies are still trying to meet the pre-orders.
PSVR has been completely dead after launch. No "buzz" at all. It's the Pro launch, Slim deals and game catalogue putting in the work.
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