Sony has been controlling the news wires across the internet with massive success of the PlayStation 4. The console wars have taken on a very lopsided approach as far as sales are concerned, considering that Sony has been very vocal about their sell-through rate of the PS4. Unfortunately, Microsoft tried following suit but in a somewhat embarrassing way.
So by now, everyone should know a couple of things during this holiday sales period: The PS4 is sold-out through Christmas. The PS4 has already sold more than 2.1 million SKUs.
Despite launching in 13 countries as opposed to the PS4, which launched in two countries and then slowly rolled out across Europe in the last week, Microsoft's Xbox One hasn't really been capturing the sales charts the way they may have wanted (or expected).
After a post about the PS4's sales went live on Ars Technica, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, Yusuf Mehdi, sent them a statement, noting...
"[We are] seeing record breaking sales and [we] are selling every Xbox One we can make. Demand is far exceeding supply in the 13 countries we’ve launched and we are sold out at retailers around the world."
This reminds me of that one time an Xbox One dev claimed Microsoft had just as many pre-orders for the Xbox One as Sony had for the PS4, but opted out of providing any numerical data to back up the claim.
It's quite funny because a bunch of users on N4G posted retailers from around the world who all have the Xbox One in stock, and their comments have all been down-voted and hidden. Gamer Fit Nation also confirmed that some Best Buy stores still had Xbox One units in stock. Doing the devil's duty, I'll just list some of the retailers who still have the Xbox One in stock:
EB Games (Australia)
Kmart (Australia)
Harvey Norman (Australia)
Amazon (UK)
Amazon (Australia)
Now to be fair, Mehdi isn't being dishonest. The Xbox One is, in fact, sold out the world around, just not in the same degree as the PlayStation 4. The site Now In Stock shows that a number of retailers are, indeed, completely out of Xbox One stock. It's probably one of the few positive things working in favor of Microsoft at the moment.
However, claiming that the console is sold out without providing any sort of measurable sales metrics is awfully disingenuous. I mean, if the supply was purposefully constrained, or there were limited shipments spread across those 13 countries, then of course retailers would be sold out. And claiming that a device is making “record breaking” sales is fine but, compared to what? What kind of sales? And how many sales?
I mean, I could very well say that I've turned down Stallone twice for advice on how to become more badass; I told him what I told Don Frye before he fought Ken Shamrock “Watch a Chuck Norris movie.”
Can anyone disprove that The Raid is an unauthorized movie of my unpublished autobiography?
I give Channing Tatum beauty tips.
Did you know Michael Bay used my weekend excursions for ideas in his movies?
I was once the secret apprentice of Liberace until he realized I wrote songs for Elton John.
John Cena carried my jockstrap to the locker room after I did impromptu training sessions with Deon Sanders.
I was the one who coached Harrison Ford on how to get lesbians to love men.
Anyway, Microsoft's hollow claim to success can't be verified right now until more hard data is released. Although, speaking of hard data, Microsoft wasn't shy about revealing hard numbers about useless game stats.
As reported on The Verge, did you know that 3 billion zombies have been killed in Dead Rising 3? Well they have. Did you know that 90 million miles have been driven in Forza 5? Well they have. And did you know that 50 million combos have been completed in Killer Instinct? Well they have.
Now if only we can get Microsoft to release some useful sales data on the actual performance of the Xbox One. I'm sure people will find that a heck of a lot more useful than how many faceless and boring enemies have been killed in Ryse... 186 million, by the way.
