PS4 vs. Xbox One: PS4 Chalks Up Another Victory

The NPD results for August are in, and
Sony confirms that its PS4 outsold both
Microsoft’s Xbox One and Nintendo’s Wii
U for yet another month, continuing a
dominant streak that’s out Sony’s console
on top nearly every month since it
launched. Overall, current-gen consoles
are selling quite well, even if the drop-
off in Ps3 and Xbox 360 sales led to a
decline in overall hardware sales.
“New physical software sales for [Xbox
One and PS4] consoles, up 34 percent,
did not offset the 51 percent decline in
[last] generation console sales as well as
the 24 percent drop in portable software
sales,” NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in
a statement provided to Gamesbeat. “This
led to the 10 percent decline in August
2015 sales versus August 2014.”
That doesn’t mean the Xbox One is doing
badly, by any means. Microsoft’s console
continues to sell well, just not as well as
the PS4. Microsoft released a typically
chipper statement:
“Xbox One continued to gain momentum
in August, with sales in the U.S. up 26
percent over August 2014. With more of
the greatest games lineup in Xbox
history, support for Xbox 360 games, the
New Xbox One Experience system update
in November alongside Xbox One
Backward Compatibility and award-
winning Xbox Elite Wireless Controller to
follow this holiday, we’re excited to
further build on this momentum in the
months to come,” said Microsoft’s Mike
Nichols.
As usual, we don’t have specific sales
numbers, just the overall rankings as
given by the companies themselves. On
the software side, it must be Football
season, because Madden 2016 tops the
list, followed by Minecraft , Gears of War:
Ultimate Edition and Lego: Jurassic
World. NPD is best at providing a
snapshot of the traditional AAA industry:
it’s more limited elsewhere, because it
doesn’t count digital sales. August was
particularly light from that perspective,
but it will be very interesting to see how
things go with the beginning of the fall
release season in September.