Month: January 2017

The wall on the left side of this picture should really be about half as big as the one on the right to reflect sales reality.

Microsoft stopped providing concrete sales data for its Xbox line years ago, making it hard to get a read on just how well the Xbox One is doing in the market compared to Sony's PlayStation 4. Recent numbers released by analysts this week, though, suggest that Sony continues to dominate this generation of the console wars, with the PS4 now selling twice as many units worldwide as the Xbox One since both systems launched in late 2013.

The first set of numbers comes from a new SuperData report on the Nintendo Switch, which offhandedly mentions an installed base of 26 million Xbox One units and 55 million PS4 units. That report is backed up by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad, who recently tweeted a chart putting estimated Xbox One sales somewhere near the middle of the 25 million to 30 million range.

Ahmad's chart suggests that Microsoft may have sold slightly more than half of the 53.4 million PS4 units that Sony recently announced it had sold through January 1. Specific numbers aside, though, it's clear Microsoft has done little to close its console sales gap with Sony over the past year—and may have actually lost ground in that time.

A report from The Information [paywall] claims that Google is going to bring its cheap smartphone initiative, Android One, to the US. Android One was originally cooked up for developing markets like India, which saw Google lay out guidelines for OEMs to make cheap smartphones that were actually good. Android One took "good enough" hardware and paired it with stock android and fast updates.

The line started out with $100 devices, with a second generation moving up to the $200 range. According to the report, in the US the devices will be a little more expensive, with releases in the $200 to $300 range. The Information wasn't sure which OEM might make the phone, but floated LG as a possible partner. LG and Google are reportedly already collaborating on an upcoming smartwatch.

A big question will be who is in charge of the updates on this device, since Google has flip-flopped on Android One software updates in the past. Google handed it for the first generation, which resulted in fast updates—the $100 phones were the first to get Android 5.1. After a rough reception in India, Google watered down the program, and updates changed from "direct from Google" to "from Google's hardware partners." To further complicate matters, there is still one Android One phone that gets updates direct from Google, the General Mobile 4G. It was even in the Android N beta program.

As climate scientists predicted as early as late 2015, the final tally shows that last year has once again claimed the unfortunate distinction of warmest year on record, based on data going back to 1880. This follows on records set in 2014 and 2015—they're the combined products of long-term human-driven warming and natural variability that has pushed individual years up or down slightly.

The biggest source of year-to-year variability is the oscillation between El Niño and La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean. In El Niño years, warm surface water flows eastward to cover up cooler, deep water; La Niñas see rising deep water pushing west against that warmer water. Depending on which conditions predominate, the average global surface temperature sits above or below the long-term trend. It’s a bit like walking up or down a step on a moving escalator.

The record-strength El Niño that developed in the latter half of 2015 carried into 2016 before fading into a weak La Niña by the end of the year. The El Niño was enough to help lift 2016 to its record position. Current forecasts call for the ongoing La Niña to be a short one, with neutral conditions early next year, and possibly another El Niño on the other side.