It takes a little man to admit when he's right. So I told you so: A new $400 Kinect-less Xbox One model has rejuvenated sales, at least temporarily, and at least in the United States, with Microsoft claiming that it sales of the console lineup "more than doubled" in June.
But doubled to ... what? And how does that compare to PS4 sales?
Microsoft isn't saying. Instead, the firm notes that it's seen a "strong spike in interest" in its new Xbox One console options, which of course includes the original Xbox One model, which includes Kinect and costs $500 (and comes with a Forza 5 game pack-in), and the new Kinect-less version of Xbox One, which costs $400, the same price as Sony's best-selling PlayStation 4.
"Since the new Xbox One offering launched on June 9th, we've seen sales of Xbox One more than double in the US, compared to sales in May, and solid growth in Xbox 360 sales," Microsoft explains in a blog post.
Oddly enough, these claims are based on "internal data," and not on NPD sales data, which is usually the case (and is trustworthy). And Microsoft's claims represent month-over-month sales, which isn't the usual way of comparing such things, but then Xbox One has only been out for 8 months so far. Microsoft's claims do apparently represent "sold through" numbers, however, meaning units actually sold to consumers, not consoles delivered to stores and warehouses.
Part of the reason for this accounting weirdness may simply be that the firm still doesn't have a full month of Kinect-less Xbox One sales to point to, and of course NPD measures things month-by-month. NPD releases its sales data to the console makers, so we'll see whether Sony can claim that it won June, as it has each of the previous months since both the PS4 and Xbox One hit the market. My suspicion is that it probably did.
