With the major shopping holidays like Black Friday and Christmas come and gone, we should finally be getting a clear picture of the next-gen consoles sales numbers soon enough. But in the interim, it seems as though Sony is leading over Microsoft.
In the days leading up to Christmas, SpawnFirst picked up on some graphs made by some NeoGAF board members who were charting how quickly the console was selling at Amazon when it was in stock. Looking at the chart, seen below, you can see that when the PS4 was in stock, it managed to move far quicker than the Xbox One.
However, there are some things to consider when looking at the chart:
* The information used that makes up the chart is coming only from Amazon, and is not indicative of other retailers.
* The chart in question consists of the sales made in only one day.
* Sales numbers can be determined, but given that it's how the supply diminishes over time, the chart is more about demand.
In the end, only total sales numbers will show the winner, and that's what we're more concerned with. But, we'll have to wait for the final numbers from Sony and Microsoft before we can call this horse race. Though, given Amazon's reputation as the largest online retailer in the world, it sure is telling.
Unfortunately, whether the chart is right or wrong, people aren't going to go on the word of a chart made up by members of a messageboard that anyone can join, and they're going to want sources that are a bit more "official," so let's take it up a notch.
You may have heard about "insider" Ahsan, better known as Thuway, who has been correct with a number of claims before. More recently, he's stated that the PlayStation 4 managed to sell 240 to 250 thousand systems in the second week of December, and that's just in the United States. Still, while thuway has an impressive track record, we'd still prefer official numbers.
Lastly, a report from Ars Tecnica surfaced earlier this week that Sony's PS4 was outselling the Xbox One on eBay by almost 2-to-1. According to a tweet from Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Baird Equity Research, "Looks like around 65k PS4s and 33k Xbox One's have sold on [Ebay] to-date." Again, not indicative of the picture as a whole, but again, it's telling.
The last numbers given from Microsoft and Sony had the next-gen sales at "over" 2 million and 2.1 million respectively.
To reiterate, we can't call this until we get the official numbers from Sony and Microsoft, and sort through any sort of spin, but for the time being, if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Sony.
Under the hood, the PlayStation 4 boasts Supercharged PC architecture, X86 CPU, Enhanced PC GPU, and 8GB Unified Memory according to the official specs.
It supports the same PlayStation Plus service as the Vita and PlayStation 3. However, a Plus subscription is required for online multiplayer games, but not for additional media services like Netflix. Sony has also updated the Dual Shock controllers with a touch screen and improved shoulder triggers, and bundles the console with a headset.
Available titles for the system include Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, Resogun, and more. You can check out a complete list of launch titles' prices and install sizes here. It currently retails for $399.
In the opposite corner, Microsoft's Xbox One claims an 8-core x86 processor and Microsoft hopes it will take the place of the family room cable box by letting you watch Blu-ray movies and TV through the console, in a "seamless transition" that lets players switch from playing games to watching shows and/or movies. It will come fully loaded with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.
The console's exclusives include Dead Rising 3, Killer Instinct, Ryse: Son of Rome, and more. You can check out a list of the install sizes for all of the launch games here. The Xbox One retails for $499.
Be sure to keep checking back with Gamenguide for more of the latest updates.
