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Sales figures released by Sony and Microsoft shows that while the Xbox One was the US holidays champ, the PS4 won the global sales race.

Sony's PlayStation consoles, including the PS4, sold 7.5 million units worldwide in the fourth quarter, compared to the Microsoft 6.6 million Xbox sales. When looking at the whole of 2014, the sales gap between the two major gaming brands stretch out to more than 6 million, again with PlayStation on top.

While PS3 sales have been lagging behind that of the Xbox 360 in North America for most of the last generation, elsewhere, the PS3 was just as competitive, if not more so, than the 360. But the PS4 has turned things around for Sony in North America, mainly due to its cheaper pricing and superior hardware package, and because of several missteps by Microsoft in the marketing of the new Xbox console. The Xbox One had to receive two price cuts within a year after its release in order to compete, which seems have brought results during the crucial holiday sales period, at least in the United States.

But it appears that worldwide, the Xbox One will still be behind in sales compared to the PS4 for the foreseeable future.

Both new consoles have gotten off to a flying start, beating their predecessors at the same stage of their release cycles. However, year on year, total sales of the two major brands are down in the fourth quarter (7.8 million and 7.4 million units for PlayStation and Xbox, in 2013).