Microsoft’s Xbox One won both of the all-important holiday shopping months of November and December at U.S. retail, according to the NPD Group, after spending most of its first year lagging behind the rival PlayStation 4.
Xbox Gets Its Mojo Back, Winning November and December at U.S. Retail
Total U.S. retail gaming sales dipped from $5.99 billion in 2013 to $5.67 billion in 2014.
Courtesy Xbox.com
Total hardware sales in December 2014 came to $1.31 billion, down four percent from the previous December. Software at retail dropped two percent to $1.25 billion (so close to digital…), while accessory sales — which include interactive toys like Nintendo’s Amiibo and Disney’s Disney Infinity figures — climbed eight percent to $681.2 million.
Looking at the two-month holiday season as a whole, American retailers made a total of $5.67 billion in 2014 on gaming sales, versus $5.99 billion in 2013. However, NPD says the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are selling 65 percent better than their predecessors were at the same point into their respective first 14 months on the market.
The Xbox One’s win was no doubt aided by a promotional price cut to $350 for the holidays, often bundled with popular games, which ended in the first week of January … and is resuming tomorrow, Microsoft said. To the poor saps who paid $400 for an Xbox in the past two weeks: Um, sorry.
The company also announced that the Xbox 360 has, in life-to-date sales, surpassed both the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii in the U.S. By how much, it did not say.
Update: Sony tells VentureBeat that even though the Xbox won the U.S. holiday, the PS4 is winning worldwide.
Update 2: An earlier version of this article referred to global sales numbers for the Xbox 360 when the NPD only measures U.S. sales. Thanks to reader Ruben L. for pointing out my boneheaded error.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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