Xbox One matches PS4 with 1 million sales in 24 hours

The rival consoles are neck in neck in everything from sales figures to hardware problems as we approach the PS4's UK launch

At GAME's pop up store in the Trocadero, 26-year-old Charlie Pulbrook was the first in line to buy the Xbox One in the UK.

It seems that the spectacle that attended the launch of the Xbox One last Friday was more than posturing, with Microsoft announcing that their latest console sold more than one million units in 24 hours.

This means the company has at least equalled the sales figures for the rival PS4, although it should be noted that whilst Microsoft launched in 13 markets on 22 November, Sony’s sales of more than one million in 24 hours came only from North America. The PS4 launches in the UK this Friday.

Microsoft said that the “Xbox One is now sold out at most retailers” and that the company is “working to replenish stock as fast as possible to meet the unprecedented demand from our customers.”

The company also gave out a number of different statistics for the console’s launch, noting that in a day’s worth of play gamers worldwide had killed roughly 60 million zombies in Dead Rising 3, driven more than 3.6 million miles in the racing game Forza and executed over 7.1 million combos in the beat-em-up Killer Instinct.

“We are humbled and grateful for the excitement of Xbox fans around the world,” said Yusuf Mehdi, vice president of marketing and strategy. “Seeing thousands of excited fans lined up to get their Xbox One and their love for gaming was truly a special moment for everyone on the Xbox team.”

However, the launch has not been without its problems and various videos have surfaced on YouTube showing the Xbox One experiencing noisy disc drive failure. Gaming blog Kotaku has dubbed the problem the ‘Disc Drive of Doom’, continuing the tradition of alliteratively named hardware failures. The launch of Microsoft's previous console, the Xbox 360, was notable for its own ‘Red Ring of Death’.

Microsoft has issued a statement saying that the issue is “affecting a very small number of Xbox One customers” and that the company is “working directly with those affected to get a replacement console to them as soon as possible.”

The PS4 experienced its own hardware faults on launch, with a recurrent failure to connect to displays described by Sony as affecting only a “very small percentage of total units shipped”.

Read more: 5 reasons to buy the PS4 instead of the Xbox One

Read more: 5 reasons to buy the Xbox One instead of the PS4