Forgetting the strong competition from Sony for a minute, it looks like Microsoft's console still celebrated a solid Black Friday Performance. This was partially thanks to a combination of a strong line-up of exclusives*, the New Xbox One Experience complete with Backward Compatibility, and an extensive line-up of console bundles. All of which drove record Xbox One sales in the U.S alone** and Xbox Store sales worldwide; with record engagement from Xbox fans around the world*** over Black Friday week.
According to Xbox Wire, Xbox fans around the world spent a total of 325 million hours gaming on Xbox Live this past week. Hours spent playing games on Xbox One last week were up 196 percent compared to Black Friday week in 2014, and time spent using Xbox apps increased a whopping 321 percent.***
Worldwide Xbox Black Friday sales in the Xbox Store broke records with an increase of 57 percent across Xbox One and Xbox 360, global Xbox Live Gold subscriptions were up over 40 percent, and U.S. Xbox One console sales at retail were up 22 percent over the same period last year, making it the second biggest Black Friday week in 15 years of Xbox history in the U.S.
Total paid unique users in the Xbox Store also broke records with an increase of 55 percent across Xbox One and Xbox 360 compared to Black Friday week last year, with 88 percent growth on Xbox One alone.
Hardware is hot this holiday – the Xbox One 500GB Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Bundle was the best-selling Xbox console bundle. The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller has been met with high demand and was sold out at most major retailers since launch and Microsoft are working hard with retailers to replenish stock.
Gamers have logged more than 4 million hours playing Xbox 360 games on Xbox One since Backward Compatibility launched on Nov. 12. Microsoft also witnessed increased Windows 10 gaming momentum heading into the holidays....
- In November, hours spent gaming on Windows 10 exceeded Windows 8 for the first time ever.
- Since Windows 10 launched in July, gamers have streamed over 5 million hours of Xbox One game content to Windows 10 PCs with Fallout 4 streamed the most frequently in November.
- Last month, nearly 30 percent of all Steam players played on Windows 10; there were six times more gamers playing Steam on Windows 10 than OSX and Linux combined.****
- Nearly 20 percent of all non-mobile devices are now running on Windows 10 - roughly double from just 3 month ago.*****
Source: [Xbox Wire]
*Based on data via Metacritic.
**Sales period of Nov. 21 – Nov. 27 in the U.S., based on internal Microsoft data
*** Period of Nov. 21 – Nov. 27 globally, based on internal Microsoft data
**** Valve October Hardware & Software Survey
***** Source: ThreatMetrix