Sony and Microsoft's tug-of-war for next-gen dominance in the United States isn't the clearest of pictures, but that's not stopping analysts from weighing in on who they think is leading in sales. Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian didn't cite specific numbers, but in an industry note he wrote that PS4 sales appear to have "a slight" advantage over Xbox One.
“Sony’s PS4 clearly bounced back from our mixed early-2013 supply chain checks, and appears to have a slight momentum edge among core gamers, as demonstrated by premium prices on eBay and persistent out-of-stock reports at retail,” Sebastian wrote.
“However, we view the console battle as too close to call, with both platforms selling well over the holidays. Moreover, a competitive ‘two horse’ console race would be positive for software publishers and retailers if Microsoft and Sony are forced to compete aggressively for market share.”
The United States has long been the Xbox platform's best market, but there appears to be a slight shift towards the PlayStation 4. Both Microsoft and Sony have each offered different twists on a sales perspective, making it difficult to announce a clear-cut winner for the launch market. Sony did reveal that it sold over one million PS4 consoles in the first 24 hours of the U.S. launch, but supply issues could have allowed the Xbox One to make up ground.
On the whole, Sebastian estimates that the U.S. games market has met or exceeded Q4 sales expectations.
