Shopping market research firm InfoScout reports that Microsoft's Xbox One was the most popular video game console on this year's Black Friday, beating Sony's PlayStation 4 in the US. According to collected data, the Xbox One dominated the charts with 31 percent of sales at Walmart and Target. Fire on past the break for more details.
This generation of video game consoles is a heated battle between Microsoft and Sony, with both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 offering improved hardware and services to boot for gamers to take advantage of to further immerse themselves into the experience. It could come across slightly surprising to see the Xbox One with such a lead in the chart since it's the most expensive option.
That said, Microsoft arguably has a stronger batch of launch titles and is pushing the Xbox into the living room as an entertainment centre, instead of a mere video game console. It's also worth noting that this data only represents Black Friday and is no way an indication as to how the console war will plan out.
There have been reports of Sony not being able to keep up with demand for the PlayStation 4, while the share figures suggest Microsoft was successful in firing up supply chains to combat consumer demand. We reported on Wednesday that Walmart may not have a lot of stock of the PlayStation 4 when compared to the Xbox One, and that appears to have been accurate.
Walmart stock: Plenty of Xbox One, not so much PlayStation 4
These are still early days and we'll have to monitor the competition to see how both consoles perform in the coming year.
The Xbox 360 came in second with 30 percent of sales (priced at $180 at Target and just $99 at Walmart), while both the PlayStation 4 and its predecessor were tied on 15 percent. Microsoft held 61 percent of the sales in total, which isn't bad going. 80 percent of consumers stated the reason for the purchase was as a gift, but 10 percent admitted they would likely open it up prior to Christmas.
The survey was based on around 83,000 shopping receipts on Black Friday.
Source: InfoScout, via: Venture Beat