The feast of capitalism begins the day after (and sometimes on) Thanksgiving with Black Friday, the traditional day that retailers finally see their ledgers creep out of the red. Now that gaming has become a mainstream recreation, we’re beginning to see consoles, accessories, software and additional gear take up an even larger margin of that single 11 billion dollar day.
With timed game exclusives such as Rise of the Tomb Raider and exclusive bundle deals like a 1TB console packaged with Fallout, Microsoft is feeling pretty pleased with their Q4 performance and released some information to back it. Via their website:
- 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 U.S. retailers since launch and we 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.
They were also eager to toot the horn over the Windows 10 launch, boasting over 30% Steam users operating under the OS and Windows 10 having out spent Windows 8 in gaming hours.
In the meantime, good luck getting your hands on an Elite controller that’s not bundled with the Elite system.
