Xbox One Sales Surge on Black Friday, Microsoft Claims

The Xbox brand had a strong Black Friday week, with Xbox One console sales and usage up significantly compared to the same period last year, Microsoft has reported.

In terms of hardware sales, the Gears of War: Ultimate Edition bundle, which was sold for $300 on Black Friday at numerous retailers, was the top-selling Xbox console bundle. The $150 Xbox Elite controller was "met with high demand" and remained sold out at most retailers in the US. Microsoft added that it is "working hard with retailers to replenish stock," though there is no word yet on when that will happen.

Overall, Xbox One console sales at retail in the US jumped 22 percent in the November 21 to November 27 time frame, becoming the second-biggest Black Friday week in the history of Xbox. Xbox Live Gold subscriptions rose by over 40 percent, while Xbox One and Xbox 360 Black Friday combined platform sales (hardware, games, accessories), jumped by 57 percent.

Usage on Xbox was also up during the period. Microsoft reports that, on a global basis, people played a total of 325 million hours on Xbox Live. On Xbox One alone, hours spent playing games were up 196 percent compared to the same period last year, while Xbox app usage (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) jumped by 321 percent.

Another figure called out in Microsoft's announcement was "total paid unique users" who visited the digital Xbox store. This number "broke records" by increasing 55 percent across Xbox One and Xbox 360 compared to Black Friday week last year; total paid unique users on Xbox One alone grew 88 percent.

In addition, Microsoft provided an update about Xbox One backwards compatibility usage, saying people have logged 4 million hours playing Xbox 360 titles on Xbox One since the feature arrived on November 12.

Microsoft also provided some numbers about Xbox performance on PC. Check out the statistics below, written by Microsoft.

• In November, hours spent gaming on Windows 10 exceeded Windows 8 for the first time ever.
• Since Windows 10 launched in July, gamers have streamed over 5 million hours of Xbox One game content to Windows 10 PCs with Fallout 4 streamed the most frequently in November.
• Last month, nearly 30 percent of all Steam players played on Windows 10; there were six times more gamers playing Steam on Windows 10 than OSX and Linux combined.
• Nearly 20 percent of all non-mobile devices are now running on Windows 10--roughly double from just 3 month ago.

Black Friday numbers for PlayStation and Nintendo consoles have not been announced.