Xbox One Has Sold Less Than Half of PS4 in Its Lifetime, Microsoft Confirms

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Xbox One sold less than half of the PS4 throughout its lifetime, Microsoft has confirmed. Court documents from the ongoing Microsoft-CADE trial have revealed details on how well the Xbox One units sold. The company currently acquiring Activision Blizzard has refused to release console sales information since 2015, instead focusing on Xbox Live numbers. “Sony has surpassed Microsoft in terms of console sales and installed base, having sold more than twice as many Xbox in the last generation,” admits Microsoft, as translated from Portuguese by The Verge.

The Xbox One launched in 2013 with a key focus on the multimedia department, alongside the Kinect feature. The decision set the console back a bit, as its rival, PlayStation 4 focused wholly on video games and its community. That paid off better for the Japanese giant. Microsoft eventually shifted focus to games as well.

While Microsoft stopped reporting sales numbers by 2016, Sony recently announced that it will not be releasing sales numbers for the PS4 anymore. The last reported figure sits at 117.2 million, as of March. Going by Microsoft court documents, this would put Xbox One's lifetime sales at a value of fewer than 58.6 million units. The PS4, on the other hand, is the fourth best-selling console of all time, behind the Game Boy, Nintendo DS, and Sony's own PlayStation 2.

The last recorded sale numbers for Xbox One were in 2015, sitting at an estimate of 51 million. The news comes in the wake of Microsoft's ongoing trial against CADE, the Brazilian competition authority. Turns out, Microsoft's $70 billion (about Rs. 5,55,467 crore) acquisition of Activision Blizzard is currently being scrutinised by regulators globally. According to GamesIndustry.biz, the deal is