Months away from the launch of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles in November, both Sony and Microsoft are now settling in for a long console competition in the coming years.
Microsoft today announced that it sold over 3 million Xbox One consoles between the device’s November 22 release date and the end of 2013. The company called the reaction from its fans “mind-blowing” and cagily claimed that the Xbox One had been “selling out throughout the holidays at most retailers worldwide.” Though the Xbox One is clearly in stock at retailers such as Amazon, GameStop, and Best Buy, Microsoft promised that it would “work hard to deliver additional consoles to retailers as fast as possible.”
This latest Xbox One announcement is another in a growing line of announcements about PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sales from both Sony and Microsoft. Both companies boasted of over one million day-one console sales at launch. Sony later followed that up with the reveal that it had sold 2.1 million PlayStation 4 consoles during the device’s first 18 days on sale and Microsoft quickly shot back with the announcement that it had sold 2 million Xbox Ones in that console’s first 18 days on sale.
Oddly, Microsoft did not use its announcement to update everyone on how many achievements Xbox One owners have earned or how many zombies have been dismembered in Dead Rising 3. Instead the announcement praised Xbox fans, stating that Microsoft is “proud to have the most passionate, engaged, and simply the best fans in the world.”