Microsoft says that "April 2016 was the best month in history for global engagement on Xbox One" but didn't offer any details on what exactly that meant.
Microsoft was responding to the latest NPD Group numbers on retail console sales in the U.S. during the month of April. Game Informer states:
"Thanks to our fans, April 2016 was the best month in history for global engagement on Xbox One, driven by the greatest games lineup, including the critically-acclaimed Quantum Break, Dark Souls III, and Tom Clancy's The Division," says Microsoft's corporate vice president of marketing Mike Nichols. "We received a strong response to the Gears of War 4 Versus Multiplayer Beta last month, which lasted two weeks and attracted more than 1.6 million unique players who helped us test and shape what is expected to be our biggest game of the year...We look forward to sharing more on our vision and plans for continuing to deliver the best gaming experience on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Xbox Live this year at E3 in June."
Oddly, Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo didn't offer any statement on if their consoles were the top selling in the U.S. during April, as one of them usually does. The NPD Group stated that hardware sales for April were down 23% compared to the same period a year ago. mainly due to lower sales on older consoles. NPD says that the combined sales of Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4 are 40% higher than the Xbox 360 and PS3 were in the same time period.
In terms of game sales, Dark Souls III was the number one best selling game in April, followed by the PlayStation 4 exclusive Ratchet & Clank and the PS3-PS4 exclusive game MLB 16: The Show. Microsoft's heavily hyped Xbox One-Windows 10 exclusive game Quantum Break only managed to make it in the number 7 slot on the list.
