The Xbox One vs PlayStation 4 console wars are continuing on, with a report saying that the demand for the PS4 is 3.3 times greater than the Xbox One.
The website VentureBeat, citing shopping portal BuyVia, said the demand for Sony’s console is quite a bit greater than Microsoft’s. BuyVia is a shopping app that helps users find a deal.
Between Nov. 24 and Dec. 14, more than 150,000 people searched used the app to search for a PlayStation 4, while only around 45,000 people looked for an Xbox One.
And out of the users who searched for an Xbox One, 43 percent bought one, while 57 percent purchased a PlayStation 4.
“This may be due to the lack of availability of the PS4, as Xboxes were more generally more available for purchase,” BuyVia cofounder Norman Fong told VentureBeat.
Sony has sold around 2.1 million PlayStation 4 units in the first two weeks, while around 2 million Xbox One units were sold in the same time frame, reports have said.
“This afternoon we learned from market research firm NPD Group that PS4 was the top-selling console for November and PlayStation was #1 in sales overall for home consoles. This news comes on the heels of yesterday’s confirmation that the PS4 launch is the biggest ever in the history of game consoles. Ever! And it’s all thanks to you,” Sony wrote in a blog post on Dec. 12.
But Microsoft said that NPD figures indicate that 909,132 Xbox One units were sold in the U.S. in the first nine days--averaging out to around 101,000 consoles sold per day.
The selling “significantly” outpaced “the nearest competitor,” meaning Sony, Microsoft said, according to Time magazine.
AP update below:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Xbox One won’t quite replace your TV set-top box, but it comes awfully close.
The latest game console from Microsoft takes a big leap toward being the main entertainment hub in your living room. It gives you a program guide for browsing what’s on TV and what’s highlighted in apps such as Netflix and Amazon. You can listen to music and view photos stored on Microsoft’s SkyDrive service. You can make Skype video calls.
And yeah, you can even play games.
Some of the updates to the Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 help turn them into multi-function devices that make them more attractive to non-gamers. The Xbox goes further than thePlayStation, mainly because it integrates regular live TV. Slick new operating systems and voice controls on both consoles can make navigating the offerings part of the fun.
The Xbox still requires a regular TV set-top box to feed it TV signals using what’s called “HDMI pass-through.” And you need subscriptions for TV and streaming services. The Xbox One acts like a traffic cop and weaves it all together elegantly. It doesn’t pull up on-demand shows or programs saved on a digital video recorder; you have to use the traditional remote control with the Xbox still powered on to do that. But Microsoft is looking at adding that feature in a future software update.
The $500 Xbox One comes with an updated Kinect device for motion and voice detection, while the $400 PlayStation 4 has a voice-command camera system for the first time, sold separately for $60. Both systems are good at facial recognition and will sign you in automatically.
The Xbox adds a few neat tricks: Using your voice, you can power it on, adjust the TV volume, find shows and channels and start photo slideshows. That’s much easier than searching my couch cushions for the TV remote control, even though my wife found it odd that I kept talking to the machine.
A nifty “snap” function that is unique to the Xbox makes it possible to do two things at once. This way, I could play “Need for Speed: Rivals” in a large window and watch the British TV show “Sherlock” on Netflix in a smaller one. I simply say to the machine, “Xbox snap Netflix,” after firing up the game and the show separately. Because snap also works for TV, I found this a great way to keep tabs on a football game, listen to a talk show or see when a commercial break ended.
I did notice some quirks, though. Using snap, I found the image stuttered when the console was starting a game or doing some other intense computing. In some cases, I found the audio lagged people’s lips moving, even when I went back to full-screen mode. In troubleshooting with Xbox support, I was told to restart the set-top box and console and make sure I had the highest-rated HDMI cables. That didn’t resolve the issue, but the hiccup isn’t a deal-breaker. When I’m doing two things, I’m not zeroing in on every detail anyway.
At this point, the PlayStation’s new user interfaces are more rudimentary, but they seem capable of improving over time. The voice commands you can give it are more limited than on the Xbox, and its home screen doesn’t make use of the touchpad on the new DualShock 4 controller. Its PlayRoom app shows off what’s possible, like kicking imaginary robots that appear to multiply in my living room. But I got the sense that game developers have yet to take advantage of the new hardware.
Both new consoles bring music into the mix with their proprietary music subscriptions, “Music Unlimited” and “Xbox Music.” Either allows you to listen to music while playing a game if you have a $10-a-month subscription. In both cases, you’ll have to fiddle with volume settings manually.
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