Microsoft's revealed that it sold approximately 1.2 million Xbox Ones last month, beating out its rivals and proving consoles aren't dead yet.
Microsoft recently cut the Xbox One's price to $350, making it $50 cheaper than Sony's latest gaming console. Apparently that price cut helped make the Xbox One more attractive than the PlayStation 4 in November.
Mike Nichols, Xbox marketing's corporate vice president, said Microsoft's Xbox division is amazed by the enthusiasm the console's fans have shown for the device at the start of the holiday shopping season.
"Response to the holiday lineup of games on Xbox One was incredible, with Xbox One fans buying more games in November in the U.S. than any other gen-eight platform and enjoying over 357 million hours of gameplay globally," said Nichols in a statement sent to IGN. "In fact, more fans logged into Xbox Live across Xbox One and Xbox 360, and enjoyed more entertainment, than any other month in the history of Xbox."
While Xbox pulled ahead last month, the console's shipment of 10 million units to date falls behind Sony by 3.5 million. However, November's console sales increased by 3 percent year over year, according to a statement released by market research company NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan.
"While the majority of the decrease in dollar sales of hardware stemmed from an expected drop of seventh-generation console sales, eighth-generation sales also decreased and represented 38 percent of the total declines in hardware sales from November 2013 to November 2014," said Callahan.
That year-over-year growth was apparently an encouraging sign to Xbox chief Phil Spencer, who took to Twitter to proclaim that consoles haven't yet stepped into the shadow of their looming demise.
"Thanks for the congrats. 18 months ago ??s were "death of console?", seems like consoles are fine, great games and sales for our industry (sic)," stated Spencer on Twitter.
Reminding gamers that it is still alive, too, and doing well, Nintendo also offered figures about its hardware and software spent the month of November. Wii U hardware sales increased by 10 percent and software rose by 90 percent in November, year over year, according to Nintendo's statement.
Nintendo stated that Super Smash Bros. Wii U moved over 700,000 units since its launch on Nov. 21 and boasted that the game has earned a score of 92 on Metacritic. Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS has sold approximately 1.5 million copies since its Oct. 3 launch, Nintendo stated.
