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PlayStation 4 and Xbox One both had successful holiday seasons… In their own way

Mike Epstein
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Sony and Microsoft both announced that the 2015 holiday season had been great for their video game platforms, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. How the two companies measured their success, or at least how they reported it, differed quite a bit from one another.

Sony told Gamespot Tuesday it has sold almost 36 million PlayStation 4 consoles after a successful 2015 “holiday season.” More specifically, Sony sold over 5.7 million units from November 22, 2015 to January 2, 2016 in North America, South America and Europe, and from November 23 to January 3 in Asia. Sony also said that more than 35 million PlayStation 4 games were sold during that period between in across retail outlets and the PlayStation Store.

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Meanwhile, Microsoft released a slew of statistics touting unprecedented levels of engagement on Xbox One. According to a post on Xbox Wire, Xbox Live saw an all-time high number of daily users on December 28, and, according to internal estimates, players logged more hours on Xbox One and Xbox 360 the week of Christmas, 2015, than they had the year before. Financially speaking, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One hardware sales continued to outpace the Xbox 360’s lifecycle, but did not specify how many consoles had been sold in November and/or December.

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Microsoft announced in October, 2015, that it would no longer disclose Xbox One hardware sales on a regular basis, choosing to focus instead on measuring how its community engaged with the platform. The announcement followed a public concession from Xbox chief Phil Spencer that the Xbox One may never match the PlayStation 4 in terms of hardware sales.

As a publisher, however, Microsoft announced that all of its first-party “holiday” games, Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza 6: Motorsport and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition have sold more than one million copies to date.

Both companies said they planned to surpass their 2015 success in the new year. Microsoft claimed they would “go bigger” with a slate of “at least” 12 Xbox One exclusive games, including Gears of War 4 and Quantum Break. Sony also pointed to its 2016 launch lineup, invoking their long-awaited title, The Last Guardian, Street Fighter V, and Uncharted 4.

Updated on 1-05-2016 by Mike Epstein: This article originally described Street Fighter V as a “timed exclusive” for the PlayStation 4. Street Fighter V is currently set to launch PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16, 2016. There are no current plans to release the game on other platforms.

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Mike Epstein
Mike Epstein
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Michael is a New York-based tech and culture reporter, and a graduate of Northwestwern University’s Medill School of…
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