Historically, the Xbox One’s sales figures have been pretty weak next to its Sony competitor. It got so bad that Microsoft stopped even divulging sales figures. However, in recent months the console has been consistently winning out. According to Aaron Greenberg, that’s resulted in an overall win for the second half of 2016.
The title is thanks, in part, to the huge spike in December sales. Greenberg says it was its biggest month ever, better even than on launch. No doubt this is a combination of continued platform development, considerable sales, and the release of the Xbox One S.
Despite its record-breaking achievement, the Xbox still didn’t beat the PS4 in December. NPD data shows that the PS4 outsold it in the last, vital month of the year. This may be thanks to some late exclusives like The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy XV. Overall, the PS4 remained the best-selling console in the US this year, though the gap is closing fast.
Huge thanks to all for making @Xbox #1 selling console in US according to NPD in second half of 2016 & Dec our biggest sales month ever!
— Aaron Greenberg ➡️LA Xbox FanFest (@aarongreenberg) January 13, 2017
Project Scorpio
That sales gap could close even further this year. Greenberg rightfully pointed out the release of Project Scorpio in 2017, a console that’s expected to have a lot more power than Sony’s competing PS4 pro. Project Scorpio will deliver native 4K in games, and will run a 6 TFLOPS graphics card.
It is 2017, the year of PROJECT SCORPIO, are you ready for the beast!? 🔥♏️🔥 pic.twitter.com/25SKDZMXfK
— Aaron Greenberg (@aarongreenberg) January 1, 2017
Microsoft will also be competiting with its own slew of exclusive releaes. Xbox fans can look foward to Halo Wars 2, as well as DLC for Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, and ReCore. Unfortunely, they won’t be seeing the launch of another big exclusive, Scalebound.
After months of no updates, Microsoft Game Studios confirmed that it had cancelled the game earlier in the week. The details of why remain vague, though Xbox One Chief Phil Spencer informed fans that the “result is better 4 Xbox gamers.”
It’s hard to say how the cancellation will affect console sales, as some were planning on buying the console solely for the one release. Microsoft’s performance will now depend heavily on how well it handles the Scorpio reveal in the coming months.
