While Sony continues to lead the overall sales battle with Microsoft, the power of big exclusives was apparent in October. According to Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg, who leads the Xbox games marketing team, the Xbox One outsold the PlayStation 4 in the US in October. While we don't have concrete sales figures—NPD doesn't publicly publish the data that Greenberg references—Microsoft says that Xbox One sales were 81 percent higher than in the same month last year.

The reason, of course, is Halo 5. The Xbox One exclusive title topped the sales charts for the month. The next six slots in the Top 10 were all cross-platform titles: NBA 2K16, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, Madden NFL 16, WWE 2K16, FIFA 16, and Destiny: The Taken King. At number eight is the Wii U-exclusive Yoshi's Woolly World, number nine is the PlayStation 4-exclusive Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, and the Top 10 is rounded out by the cross-platform Rock Band 4.

The new Xbox One software, which rolled out yesterday, should help Microsoft's console, too. It includes the hotly anticipated backward compatibility feature, with more than 100 games already supported.

Xbox One has outsold the PlayStation 4 on occasional months, usually due to bundles or promotions giving it the edge. But it's the PlayStation 4 that normally has the lead, and globally that console is estimated to have about double the install base of Microsoft's offering.