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Microsoft Crows About Black Friday Successes
Last week's Black Friday sales were a success for Microsoft, according to the company. Xbox One and Windows 10 users spent significant chunks of time playing games on the platforms, in addition to opening their wallets.
Here are some of the highlights, according to Microsoft:
- Players spent 325 million hours on Xbox Live worldwide last week. Xbox One usage on the service was up 196 percent over last year's Black Friday week, and players spent 321 percent more time using Xbox apps over last year, too.
- Xbox Live Gold subscriptions were up 40 percent over last year's Black Friday.
- Players have spent more than 4 million hours playing Xbox 360 games on Xbox since the Nov. 12 update added backward compatibility.
- The time spent gaming on Windows 10 exceeded Windows 8 for the first time in November.
- Almost 20 percent of all nonmobile devices are running Windows 10, which is about twice as many as three months ago.
[Source: Microsoft]
Our Take
Aside from a vague reference that the Gears of War: Ultimate Edition was in high demand, the company didn't provide any concrete information on hardware sales. That's certainly in line with the company's new strategy of focusing on user engagement over console shipments.
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