PS4 Takes Top Spot in War with the Xbox One

This generation of console gaming only kicked off a month ago, but industry insiders are already looking for early signs of which company will come out on top. Fortunately for Sony, early sales numbers seem to favor its PS4 as the early leader.

This afternoon Sony took to its PlayStation Blog announce that numbers compiled by the NPD Group indicated that more households took home the PS4 than any other console this holiday season or in history, snagging first place just one month after it began selling the PS4 in the United States. That’s great news for Sony, the company spent most of the PS3’s life cycle battling Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for supremacy but hardly ever managed to best that console’s sales until its launch of the PS3 GTA 5 bundle.

While the Xbox One lost to the PS4 in terms of console sales in the United States, Microsoft took to its News Center to boast about figures that it feels highlights the Xbox One’s position in the market. According to Microsoft, combined spending for the Xbox One and Xbox 360 topped $1.21 billion, besting the ecosystems of other consoles. Microsoft also says that the Xbox One and Xbox 360 also hold 5 of the 10 spots for top game sales. The press release was also careful to mention that the Xbox One is selling three times than the Xbox 360 at this point in its launch in the United States.

Neither Sony nor Microsoft included updated sales figures for each console. While NPD does track unit sales, it doesn’t share any of that data publicly. Microsoft announced that it had sold 2.1 million Xbox One consoles in between the its launch and this past Wednesday. Sony announced that it sold 2.1 million consoles last week.

Overall, losing the NPD sales race to Sony isn’t flattering for Microsoft. However the are a few notes to consider. The PS4 actually debuted a week before the Xbox One, because of this Sony has had more time to get consoles in the hands of users. It’s also worth noting that the Xbox One costs a full $100 more than the PS4. Though Microsoft would have industry watchers believe that it simply didn’t have enough time to match Sony’s numbers before the month of December, it’s possible that the Xbox One’s price may have had something to do with sales.