According to research firm IHS Markit, Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox One family of consoles sold 39.1 million units globally by the end of March 2018, while Sony's (TYO:6758) PlayStation 4 consoles have reached 76.6 million units at the same time.
These estimates are a little bit higher than expected for the Xbox One, though Microsoft did say recently that Xbox One sales had increased by 15% on a year-over-year basis.
Today, we’re witnessing a record-setting number of players, playing at record levels, and engaging in new ways. Xbox Live players are up 13 percent and Xbox One sales are up 15 percent over the same period last year, but that’s not all. We’ve seen more than 600,000 friendships forged with the Looking For Group feature and there are now more than 1.2 million Clubs on Live.
We’re seeing tremendous engagement of mega-hits like Fortnite and Far Cry 5, both of which play best in 4K Ultra HD on XB1X, joining the more than 200 games that now feature XB1X enhancements. But we’re also seeing fantastic engagement with console exclusives like Sea of Thieves, the fastest-selling Microsoft Studios new IP of this console generation, and PlayerUnknown’sBattlegrounds, whose new desert-themed map is now available to play on a dedicated test server ahead of its launch in Xbox Game Preview later in May. We also reached a couple milestones recently with players having enjoyed over 4 billion hours on games released through our ID@Xbox program and nearly 1 billion hours on games in our Xbox One Backward Compatibility library.
Even so, the Nintendo (TYO:7974) Switch might catch up with the Xbox One despite having launched three and a half years later. The hybrid handheld/home console currently sits at 17.79 million units sold by the end of March 2018 and Nintendo plans to sell 20 million more by March 2019.
As for the PlayStation 4, Sony recently revealed to have shipped 79 million units, so the number is in the ballpark of the 76.6 million units sold estimated by IHS Markit.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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