Early data shows Xbox One leading PS4 in Black Friday U.S. sales

Microsoft's Xbox One may be $100 more expensive than Sony's PlayStation 4 but there is evidence that shoppers on Black Friday 2013 in the U.S. may have preferred Microsoft's newest hardware product more than Sony's. The claim comes from a company called InfoScout, which collects data from shopping receipts that are scanned and sent to the company from consumers via mobile apps.

In this case, InfoScout collected 83,000 receipts from about 3,000 people who went to Walmart and Target stores on Friday. According to their blog, the data collected from those receipts shows that the Xbox One claimed 31 percent of game console sales that day, followed closely by sales of Microsoft's older console, the Xbox 360, with 30 percent. Specific sales numbers were not revealed.

Sony's PS3 and PS4 were third and fourth place, respectively, on the list with each console claiming about 15 percent of sales from those two stores on Friday. It's possible that the PS4's lower ranking was due to a smaller amount of units that were put on sale that day compared to the Xbox One.

It's very bad news for Nintendo's Wii U, according to InfoScout. The console, which launched just a year ago and has been a sales disappointment ever since, was a distant fifth place in Black Friday sales, claiming just 6 percent of all console purchases. The older Wii was in sixth place with one percent. 85 percent of consumers that bought a console on Black Friday said they would also purchase two or more games during the holiday period. Not surprisingly, "Call of Duty Ghosts" was the most purchased game during Black Friday.

Source: InfoScout via VentureBeat | Image via InfoScout