Combating the market-leading PS4, the Xbox One enjoyed a four month winning streak in North America during the Summer/Fall season of 2016. That streak would come to an abrupt end in November as both consoles competed for the attention of consumers during the holiday season.
News of the PS4's victory during the holiday season made headlines and produced plenty of discussion. Although significant, it wasn't enough to overshadow the Xbox One's success during the months prior.
In-fact, today's private release of NPD Group results for the month of December 2016 have prompted a very positive response from Microsoft, who shared that "Xbox One was the top-selling console over the second half of 2016." It appears that the PS4's monumental figures during November and December weren't enough to make up for the gap.
Xbox One demand saw a miraculous boost from the release of the Xbox One S, an updated version of the console with higher efficiency, 4K media playback support, and an attractive form factor.
Although an important achivement for the Xbox family, this result only takes into account sales in North America. The PS4 currently leads worldwide by over 20 million consoles sold.
Microsoft Corporate vice president Mike Nichols also shared that Xbox Live saw "3.9 billion hours" played during November and December, a new record for the service. The company didn't release sales figures, making it unclear how large of a margin the victory was. Given the figures estimated by analysts during 2016, it was likely a spread of under 100,000 units.
Microsoft has recently come under scrutiny for its cancelation of Scalebound in addition to what many consumers perceive as an unimpressive 2017 software line-up. Its execution during these next few months will be pivotal to its performance as its leads up to the Holiday 2017 launch of Project Scorpio.
