Another cycle has passed and the results are in. Despite the PS4's regular fixture atop the best-selling console list, it was the Xbox One who came out on top in October 2015.

Marketing research firm The NPD Group has just released its console sales report for the month of October in the U.S. The report did not reveal exact sales figures for specific hardware, but Microsoft said in a statement shared with GameSpot that it was the Xbox One who sold the most units.

"The strength of the greatest games lineup in Xbox history drove record Xbox Live usage for October and made Xbox One the best-selling console in the U.S. with 81 percent growth compared to October 2014," said Xbox marketing executive Mike Nichols.

It can be remembered that Sony dropped the price of the PS4 down to $350 for the first time last month, which means that the Xbox One didn't have its usual price advantage going into the last quarter of 2015. It seems that Sony's strategy did little to deter Microsoft's onslaught of exclusive content coming this holiday season.

"We are truly humbled by the success of the PlayStation 4 and look forward to celebrating with our fans at PlayStation Experience in December. Thank you to our community for making PlayStation 4 the top selling console globally," said a representative from Sony in response to the latest sales report.

Overall console sales dipped to $270.3 million from the $271.1 million earned the same time last year. The slight difference doesn't really raise that much alarm, and the current figure is still fairly impressive. This is because sales of portable gaming systems dropped as much as 27 percent, increasing console sales up to three percent in the process.

"This was due entirely to 8th generation console hardware sales, which rose by 12 percent to offset the 66 percent decrease in hardware sales for 7th generation consoles," said NPD researcher Liam Callahan via VentureBeat.

Another key takeaway from the report was that sales of console bundles took up 96 percent of all hardware sales. That's almost double the amount from the same time last year when bundles were responsible for only 53 percent of sales.

Meanwhile, "Halo 5: Guardians" was hailed as the top software content for October 2015, followed by "NBA 2K16" and "Assassin's Creed Syndicate." That said, the latest "Halo" title wasn't enough to make October a $1 billion month like September.

 "[This] generation of consoles had a strong month with 62 percent growth over October 2014, while last-generation console sales dropped by 63 percent," said Callahan. "That's higher than the year-to-date decrease in sales of 51 percent."

The statistics suggested that players are veering away from last-gen consoles, even though they cost much less than their next-gen counterparts. Microsoft seems to have benefited from this transition as Xbox 360 owners are now buying the Xbox One at a faster rate, most probably for the new "Halo" title.