Microsoft Finally Speaks Up on Xbox One Sales

Microsoft claims that Xbox One sales "are on the rise," with sales "skyrocketing" since the firm temporarily (hopefully permanently) dropped the price of the console and its various bundles by $50 each. But it didn't offer a figure for Xbox One consoles sold to consumers, as does its chief rival. Instead, Microsoft has offered a figure for Xbox One consoles sold into the retail channel.

That figure is just shy of 10 million units, Microsoft says.

By comparison, Sony claimed that it had sold 13.5 million PlayStation 4 consoles to consumers as of September 30.

There's no real way to know how many Xbox One consoles have really sold through to consumers, but if I had to guess, that figure is likely half to two-thirds of the sell-in number. Or about 5 million to 7 million units.

As for the rising sales, Microsoft says that "Xbox One sales in the US have more than tripled" since the price drop. And "Xbox One led [current] generation console sales in the US for the past two weeks," which is an important sort-of-milestone because Xbox One has been outsold by the PS4 every single month since both consoles launched a year ago.

Has Microsoft finally found the secret sauce for success? Maybe. But as one of many who was complaining all of last year and into 2014 that the $500 launch price for the Xbox One was far too high, it's hard to understand what took the company to come around. At today's prices, Xbox One finally makes sense. And that's not something we were saying last year.

And seriously, Microsoft. You'd be crazy to raise prices again after the holidays. That would be a huge mistake.

As for Sony, it hasn't dropped the price of the PS4 yet. Because it hasn't had to.