Xbox One Sales Surge 81 Percent Year-Over-Year, Best PlayStation 4 In October

Yesterday was a big day for Microsoft and Xbox One gamers. On Thursday, Microsoft made the New Xbox One Experience (NXOE) available for Xbox One consoles, bringing with it a new Windows 10-based user interface, faster performance, new community options, and much appreciated backwards compatibility.

But while the release of the XBOE experience was big news for Microsoft, the folks in Redmond, Washington had some more exciting news to celebrate this week — beating Sony’s PlayStation 4 in sales for the first time in months. Even though Sony cut the price of the PlayStation 4 from $399 to $349 during the month of October, it wasn’t enough to top the surging Xbox One for the entire month.

Perhaps buoyed by the prospects of Halo 5: Guardians, the Xbox One was able to muscle out a win, with October 15 sales surging 81 percent compared to October 2014. “The strength of the greatest games lineup in Xbox history drove record Xbox Live usage for October and made Xbox One the best-selling console in the U.S. with 81 percent growth compared to October 2014,” said Xbox marketing chief Mike Nichols.

“We saw amazing fan excitement, commercial success, and critical acclaim in October for Halo 5: Guardians, which was the best-selling game in the U.S., and other Xbox One titles launching earlier this fall, including Forza Motorsport 6, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Harmonix’s Rock Band 4, and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.”

Sony has what seems like an unsurmountable lead when it comes to current generation console sales, and the company attempted to deflect attention from the Xbox One’s rare October victory. “We are truly humbled by the success of the PlayStation 4 and look forward to celebrating with our fans at PlayStation Experience in December,” said a Sony spokesman. “Thank you to our community for making PlayStation 4 the top selling console globally.”

As we head into the holiday shopping season, there are numerous consoles deals starting to pop up just in time for Black Friday. One of the best deals, which will go live this weekend, includes an Xbox One 500GB Gears of War console, two controllers, and a free copy of Fallout 4.