Microsoft said today that it shipped more than 2 million video game consoles in its third fiscal quarter ended March 31 — and 1.2 million of these were Xbox Ones.
Those numbers jibe with last week’s announcement that Microsoft has shipped to retailers about 5 million of its Xbox One consoles since launching the system last November. But the company didn’t say how many of these systems got bought.
Sony, by contrast, said earlier this week it has sold more than 7 million PlayStation 4 consoles. That’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, but Microsoft isn’t releasing actual sell-through numbers. Still, it’s not a surprise that Sony is outselling Microsoft. Sony’s machine has an advantage since it costs $400 while Microsoft’s console is $500.
That means that Microsoft has shipped to retailers more than $2.5 billion worth of hardware to retailers. Sony, meanwhile, has sold more than $2.8 billion worth of consoles to gamers.
The quarterly numbers for the first calendar quarter also show that consumers are still buying a lot of previous-generation Xbox 360 consoles.