PlayStation 4 was outsold by Xbox One in North America last month, bringing an end to Sony’s 10-month winning streak in the region.
Microsoft has been pretty aggressive with its pricing strategy for Xbox One as of late, particularly over the lucrative Thanksgiving period. Furthermore, the format holder was tipped early on to have triumphed over PS4 in the Black Friday sales battle by several sources.
It’s not just the U.S. where PS4 was given a black-eye by Xbox One either; Microsoft also managed to beat Sony in the U.K., too, thanks to various bundle offers.
Still, it wasn’t all bad news, as Sony was more than pleased with the PS4’s performance in November 2014:
"We are thrilled with the incredible momentum seen at retail heading into the holiday shopping season," said the company. "PS4 is the cumulative leader in hardware sales and was No. 1 on the Amazon Video Games Bestseller list on Black Friday.
"On the network side, November was the biggest month ever in PlayStation Store history with a nearly 50 percent increase in unique visitors compared to last year. We couldn’t have done any of this without the support of our fans. The immediate success of PlayStation Experience and celebration of the 20th Anniversary demonstrates tremendous dedication to the PlayStation platform. We are humbled by the loyalty of our fans and look forward to amazing them in 2015."
The NPD Group confirmed that PS4 and Xbox One have proven so popular, that they have surpassed their predecessors—the PS3 and Xbox 360, respectively—first 13 month sales by a whopping 80 percent.