ps4Sony’s PlayStation 4 again led the way for U.S. console sales in July, outselling Microsoft’s Xbox One for the third consecutive month.

“We are truly humbled by the success of the PS4 and we would like to thank gamers for making it the top selling console and No. 1 in software sales in the United States in July,” Sony Computer Entertainment America said in a statement.

Microsoft, meanwhile, said that “Xbox One and Xbox Live continued to see strong sales and engagement in July, with Xbox One sales in the U.S. up 44 percent over July 2014 and active global Xbox Live users (Xbox One and Xbox 360) up 22 percent.”

Xbox-One-With-controllerMicrosoft has priced the Kinect-less Xbox One at $349 since Jan. 16; the PS4 has sold at $399 since both consoles launched in November 2013.

One interesting data point from NPD today was that on a unit basis, the Xbox 360 sold more new physical software than the Xbox One.

” … One reason for the stronger 360 sales may have been the news of backward compatibility for the Xbox One coming out of E3,” NPD noted. “Consumers may have felt safer buying 360 games knowing that they will be able to play them on Xbox One if they choose to upgrade.”

Microsoft made the unexpected debut of Xbox One backward compatibility at E3 in June, with all Xbox One users receiving the feature by November.

NPD also noted that combined Xbox One and PS4 U.S. hardware sales are close to 50 percent higher than what Xbox 360 and PS3 sold during the same time frame. Overall video game sales across hardware, new physical software — not digital copies — and accessories rose by 5 percent last month from July 2014.

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