Industry analyst Michael Pachter says that he is expecting Xbox One sales in September “to exceed those of PS4 for only the second month since launch,” despite one of the biggest games of the year, Destiny, having a huge PlayStation-focused campaign. He estimates that Microsoft sold 325,000 Xbox One units compared to 250,000 PS4s.
Patchter believes that Xbox One’s success in September is due to Microsoft being more canny with marketing, offering a better deal with an attractive console and game bundle. While Sony offered a PS4 Destiny bundle costing $450, Microsoft offered a free game in September (up to the value of $59.99) for anyone buying an Xbox One. “I kind of think that free Destiny [on Xbox One] was better than [paying] for Destiny on PS4,” Pacther told VentureBeat.
In a separate conversation, the Wedbush analyst compared Destiny to last year’s big title GTA V, stating that September’s US retail NPD figures will be way down compared to the same period last year. GTA V shifted 7 million units in September 2013, while Destiny has shipped approximately 2.75 million. It’s still a great result for publisher Activision, who marketed its shooter extremely well, though revenue from games sold last month is expected to be $435 million, down from $754 million last year.
"Last September, Take-Two announced worldwide retail sell-through [sales to consumers] for [GTA V] of over $800 million on day one and over $1 billion for the first three days," says Pachter. "[Those are] both industry records. This September’s biggest release, Activision Blizzard’s Destiny, had day one sell-in to retailers of over $500 million, a record for a new franchise, with sell-through to consumers of over $325 million in its first five days."
With Grand Theft Auto being such an established and well-loved series, and Destiny being a brand new franchise, it’s no surprise to see such a big sales gap between the two.
October appears to be a better month for Sony and the PlayStation 4, at least in Europe, with reports that the launch of DRIVECLUB has seen PS4 consoles outsell Xbox One by a ratio of 5:1. While Sony sold 96,000 PS4s during DRIVECLUB launch week, Microsoft shifted 19,700 units.