900,000 Xbox Ones went unsold worldwide in 2013 [UPDATE]

[UPDATE] Following the publication of this story, Microsoft corporate PR representative David Dennis issued a statement to GameSpot that aims to clear up the discrepancy between Xbox One units shipped vs. sold during the quarter.

"We sold through nearly every unit we could in the holiday period and pulled forward as many units as we could from Q3. However, only some of those shipments were sold into the channel in the final period of the quarter and so there was not time to sell the units through to customers," Dennis said. "These units are now being sold through to customers."

The original story is below.

Microsoft announced today as part of its latest financial report that it sold to retailers (shipped) 3.9 million Xbox One consoles worldwide during the quarter ended December 31. It sounds like a big number, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

Microsoft previously announced that it sold to consumers 3 million systems worldwide by that same end-date, meaning there were actually 900,000 Xbox One consoles either left on store shelves or in transport during the year. This despite Microsoft saying it was selling every console it could make.

Sony sold 4.2 million PlayStation 4 consoles in 2013, but we won't know how many units were left on shelves during the year, if any, until the company reports earnings in early February.

Total Devices and Consumer revenue, the Microsoft business segment to which the Xbox unit belongs, saw revenue for the quarter rise 13 percent to $11.91 billion. Microsoft also shipped 3.5 million Xbox 360 consoles during quarter, bringing total Xbox console shipments to 7.4 million.

Xbox platform revenue increased to $1.6 billion due to the release of the Xbox One, though cost of revenue also increased due to the higher volumes of consoles sold and "additional costs" associated with the release of the Xbox One. Xbox Live continued to be a bright spot for Microsoft during the quarter, with transactional revenue rising more than 25 percent.

Overall, Microsoft announced record revenue of $24.52 billion for the quarter, and a net profit of $6.56 billion, which is up year-over-year.