Regardless of the sales performance of the Xbox One so far this generation, you can’t deny Microsoft is trying really hard to convince us all to buy one. And in the short term at least it seems to be working, thanks in no small part to a recent price cut.
At the end of October Microsoft rolled out a $50 temporary price reduction for the Xbox One.
It applies to the base console and all bundles, meaning you can pick one up between now and the beginning of January for as little as $349. Add to that the recent release of Sunset Overdrive and the system-seller that is Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and you won’t be surprised to hear that sales are up.
Microsoft is claiming sales in the US have tripled since the price cut was announced, which probably also means a fair few copies of theHalo collection have been purchased (despite it being full of bugs). Actual sales of the Xbox One up to the end of October haven’t been announced, but Microsoft did state that 10 million consoles have now been shipped to retailers. 5 million had shipped to retailers back in April, so Microsoft is producing an average of a million a month right now.
Increased sales are good news for Microsoft and the games industry as a whole, but the PS4 is still way out in the lead. As of October 31, Sony announced that it had sold 3.3 million units during the third quarter, and had sold 13.5 million in total by September 30. It’s fair to say that figure will have likely increased to over 14.5 million by now.
With that in mind, Sony’s hardware lead is around 5 million units and that has to worry Microsoft.
The larger the gap, the more chance there is that developers will choose PS4 as a lead platform because there’s a much greater chance of a game selling. All Microsoft can do is continue to advertise (without looking desperate), review its pricing regularly, and court developers to ensure Xbox One gets all the games PS4 does as well as a few exclusives.