14 DAY TRIAL // The NPD Group has released its widely awaited hardware sales chart for the month of April in the United States, which shows that the PlayStation 4 home console from Sony has once again managed to perform better than the Xbox One from Microsoft.
It’s the fourth month in a row that this has happened, although it is too early in the life cycle of the new devices to say whether this is a long-term trend or just a situation that could change before the end of the year.
Sony has not announced an official sales number for the PlayStation 4, which is a little weird given its strong performance, but Microsoft has admitted that the Xbox One has managed to shift just 115,000 devices to its own fans.
The company also says that it managed to deliver 71,000 Xbox 360 platforms during the month of April and that it sold 2.2 million video games for the older device.
Sony has explained that there are still supply constraints which limit the availability of the PlayStation 4 in the United States and that InFamous: Second Son was the best-selling next-gen title for the month of April.
Liam Callahan, an analyst working with the NPD Group, is quoted by VG247 as saying that, “Life to date, sales of PS4 and Xbox One hardware have more than doubled the combined sales of PS3 and 360 hardware through their first six months of sales.”
He adds, “PS4 software combined with Xbox One software sales are up over 40% compared to sales of the PS3 and Xbox 360 through their first six months. Wii U software sales were up over last year by over 80%.”
Total industry sales for the month of April have increased by 17 percent when compared to the same period of 2013, mostly because of solid sales of the next generation of gaming hardware, with the overall value reaching 580.3 million dollars (405 million Euro).
Recently, Microsoft has announced that it will drop the Kinect motion tracking system from the Xbox One retail package starting with early June, while also reducing the price of the device by 399 dollars or Euro to make it more attractive.
This means that the NPD Group figures that will be released in July become very important because they will show how the two rival devices from Sony and Microsoft perform when they have the same price for potential buyers.