For the week of E3 2015, Xbox One consoles outsold PlayStation 4’s in the US; they didn’t hold the title for long, as PS4 still came out on top in June, but for Microsoft the feat is good news.
Aaron Greenberg, Xbox exec, tweeted about the sales, saying that during the E3 week, Xbox One sales rose 79 percent compared to E3 last year. Even for June in general, Xbox One sales were up 51 percent compared to June 2014. Given the strong conference performance, and considerable number of exclusives to come, it’s not really a surprise Microsoft sales rose over Sony at E3.
However, as perhaps expected, the Batman Arkham Knight console bundle for PS4 boosted Sony’s sales for June over that of the Xbox One.
It’s not just the console that’s booming for Microsoft, though, the number of people subscribing to Xbox Live has risen too, a healthy 22 percent in June across Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Xbox One’s backward compatibility has gone down well – to add to their line of June success, with Preview Program members clocking over 30 million minutes of Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One. Microsoft have confirmed that the compatibility mode will be available for all Xbox users in fall. By then there will be hundreds of supported games that weren’t announced in the initial line up.
The backwards compatibility seems to add to growing list of things that Xbox One has over the PS4, which is why it’s surprising to see it continually be outsold. As it stands (and this just my opinion, coming from a previous Sony fanboy, now looking objectively) sales of Xbox One should be set to continue to rise; I mean, how can people buy a console they already have, right?
Whatever July holds for Xbox One and PS4 sales globally, an almost 80 percent rise in the US for sales over a week is a win for Microsoft.