It seems that the PS4’s reign at the top as the highest selling console every month in the US was broken in July- with the latest NPD monthly report out, Microsoft’s Xbox One console has emerged at the top, handily beating out Sony’s PlayStation 4 console.
“We’re honored that Xbox One was the best-selling console in the U.S. in July, and that total gaming hours on Xbox consoles globally were up 18 percent over last year, reaching 1.55 billion hours,” Xbox marketing boss Mike Nichols said in a statement provided to GamesBeat.
However, Microsoft also acknowledged that the true bump for the Xbox One may lie ahead- with the Xbox One S, which has sold out everywhere, providing the system an advantage in August.
“Following its release last week, the 2TB launch edition of Xbox One S sold out in the U.K. and is nearly sold out in the U.S.,” said Nichols. “Later this month on August 23, we will launch 500GB and 1TB options for Xbox One S at $299 and $349, respectively. We’re excited about all the fun gamers are having on Xbox One and all the new releases we’ll be bringing them this holiday.”
In other news, according to insiders with access to full NPD numbers posting on NeoGAF, it also sounds like 3DS may have been the top selling bit of gaming hardware in July, which is being attributed to the bump that Pokemon has received as a result of the launch of Pokemon GO. We’ll have the full specifics on this later- but for now, it appears as though Nintendo’s smartphone strategy has paid off handsomely.