Microsoft Xbox One X outselling Sony Playstation 4 Pro in the US, claims analyst

Microsoft on course to cross 35 million sales mark for Xbox One console - still a long way behind Sony

Microsoft is on course to pass the 35 million-mark for sales of its Xbox One console, according to analyst firm Niko Partners, but its latest Xbox One X high-definition iteration of the Xbox is outselling Sony's Playstation 4 Pro - at least in the US.

That's according to Daniel ‘ZhugeEx' Ahmad, a gaming industry analyst at Niko Partners, whose estimate is the closest to an official sales figure for the console after Microsoft stopped reporting monthly sales in November 2014 following disappointing sales.

In a forum post, Ahmad explained that global sales of the Xbox One are currently sitting just under the 35 million mark, but he added that he expects this target to be surpassed soon.

That did not stop fellow forum posters from quizzing the analyst on his sources. One of them asked: "Do you have a source for that? Just curious."

Confident in these numbers, Ahmad pointed out that they are based on NPD data, which he claims to have had advanced access to.

Another poster asked him if sales of the Xbox One X are performing better than the PS4 Pro. He said: "In the US, when launch aligned, yes. The One X got off to a really good start."

In November 2014, the last month that Microsoft provided monthly totals, the company confirmed that Xbox One shipments had passed 10 million units. But it has not been forthcoming with sales figures since then.

Microsoft's Xbox sales are dwarfed by the Playstation 4's 73.6 million total sales recorded as of 31 December 2017.

Last year, box counters NPD revealed that the festive period saw impressive sales boosts for the all three main consoles: the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Despite this, the industry tracking company said Sony still has the biggest "momentum" when it comes to getting consumers to buy its consoles.

Mat Piscatella, an analyst at NPD, said: "More units of PlayStation 4 hardware sold in November 2017 than any other month life-to-date. PlayStation 4 is the best-selling video game hardware platform year-to-date."

Sony is forecast to pass the 100 million-sales-mark in 2019.

Sony is widely regarded to have 'won' the latest round of the so-called console wars after Microsoft's botched Xbox One launch in 2013, which alienated many gamers with suggestions of an aggressive digital rights management policy combined with the strong implication that it was sidelining games in favour of making it a family media player.

At one point, the company even indicated that it planned on porting Office 365 to the console.