Microsoft talks Xbox One and PS4 sales marathon

[Yugioh21]

Microsoft corporate vice president Phil Harrison has reiterated the publisher's stance that the sales race between Xbox One and PlayStation is a "marathon, not a sprint."

VentureBeat asked the executive how Microsoft plans to help the Xbox One catch up to Sony in hardware sales. "We’re 120 days into our platform lifecycle," said Harrison.

"We’re happy with our plan. We’re happy with the performances of our key franchises and key partnerships, most notably Titanfall in the last couple of weeks. You can see independent surveys and studies showing our sell-through doubling in the UK as far as hardware," he added, referencing the 96 percent Xbox One sales spike this week.

PlayStation 4 sales crossed the 6 million milestone earlier this month, whereas Microsoft hasn't updated its Xbox One sales tally from the 3.9 million mark it revealed in January.

"We have a fantastic lineup we’ll reveal more of at E3 and beyond," added Harrison. "We have a lot of great surprises to come."

Titanfall is, as you might expect, also seen as a key plus point for the Xbox One. "Titanfall is blowing the doors off, literally and figuratively. Great engagement, just fantastic proof of users not only buying Xbox One, but using it in a very engaged way. More than five hours average use per day, which is amazing."

Harrison was talking at GDC 2014 to promote the company's ID@Xbox scheme, which is designed to tempt indie developers to create software for Microsoft's latest home console. He also referenced the fact that the Xbox One will launch in an additional 26 countries in September.

"That will be 39 markets where Xbox One will be available by the end of the year," he said. "Partnering that with the ID@Xbox program means that I hope we find really culturally relevant local products and experiences coming to our platform. That will really accelerate us."

source:gamespot