Microsoft(MSFT) and Sony (SNE) have been waging a back-and-forth public relations battle to establish which company’s new video game console is more popular this holiday shopping season. With its latest press release, Microsoft basically admitted that it is not selling as many new consoles as Sony (SNE), but blamed production issues, not consumer demand. Microsoft (MSFT) announced Wednesday that it has sold more than 2 million Xbox One consoles to consumers in its first 18 days of availability. “Demand is exceeding supply in our 13 launch markets and Xbox One is sold out at most retailers,” Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft corporate vice president of strategy and marketing for Xbox, said in a statement . The Microsoft press release included quotes from executives at retailers Amazon.com (AMZN), GameStop (GME) and Wal-Mart (WMT) supporting its claim that the Xbox One is a hot-selling product. On Dec. 3, Sony announced that it had sold more than 2.1 million PlayStation 4 consoles in the product’s first 16 days of availability. Like the Xbox One, the PS4 also is in short supply this holiday season. Sony launched its PS4 on Nov. 15 and Microsoft followed with the Xbox One a week