RSSMicrosoft attempts to put positive spin on Xbox 360 sales
By Ed Oswald | Published March 17, 2008, 3:11 PM
With 360 sales lagging behind its competitors, Microsoft is stressing the strength of its games and accessories market as evidence that there is nothing to worry about.
For the second month in a row, Xbox 360 sales according to NPD Group fell below those of the Wii and PS3 in February. About 432,000 Wii's were sold, and 280,800 PS3s. During the month, Microsoft only managed to sell about 254,600 consoles.
In response to this poor showing, Microsoft again offered up the official line that the company was still experiencing shortages in availability of its consoles. It claimed that it was selling out at retail as soon as it was being stocked.
This latest mea culpa comes a month after the company admitted that it was having trouble keeping up with console demand. At the time, it said it could take until spring before the company is able to ramp up its manufacturing to adequate levels.
Possibly in an attempt to divert attention away from its supply issues, Microsoft pointed to a very strong accessory and game market, saying that it maintains a lead there in comparison to other indicators.
For example, the Xbox 360 title Call of Duty 4 again led sales of all video games, and games for the console held five of the top 10 games for the month, the most of the next-generation systems.
However, of course the other two companies used their success to play up their own business. Sony made it a point to stress that sales of its PS3 console are up 120 percent year over year, while Nintendo grouped its DS and Wii systems together, trumpeting that 48 percent of all hardware sold in the US was produced by the company.
Wii is a fad. We have a Wii and a 360, and the Wii gets about 1/10 the playtime of the 360. I don't get why MS doesn't advertise the Live! function better. We rent movies on Live! all the time. Last night we rented Stardust. I've also downloaded some Anime shows.
PS3 should catch up, but I think both PS3 and 360 will surpass the Wii.
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|I don't get why the PS3 outselling the Xbox360 for 2 months is such a big deal. If you add up how many units each have sold since Sept. 07, xbox has a 2 to 1 lead on PS3 for units sold during that time frame, not counting how many MS has sold prior to that. They already have a very large installed customer base, so PS3 outselling by a little is not going to break them.
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|Of course their sales will start going down they started selling 360 way before ps3 and wii, so more people have the 360 and less to sell, why don't they post total consoles sold.
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|I really dont think MS has anything to worry about with the Xbox... AT ALL..
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|I agree.
While it's true the well publicized hardware issues did some damage to MS's credibility here; it's also possible that on top of their 'supply issues', there may be a certain amount of market saturation, causing them to plateau in their sales.
A price cut in the US couldn't hurt...
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|Yes there were hardware issues but at least MS is taking care of them in the right way. I can't say the same if the PS3 had similar issues, Sony would probably just say "tough luck, buy a new PS3". I also guarantee you that when the 2.0 version of blu-ray comes out and people have to buy new blu-rays to play new disks Sony isn't going to give people new systems or even give a discount to people who have them. MS has shown that they take care of their XBOX 360 customers when they make a mistake. XBOX 360 has better games, a better controller and better online support so I don't think MS has anything to worry about.
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|Xbox-Scene.com reports:
"The internal distribution of reports in the xbox unit has been severely restricted since I started posting in Feb. That was predictable. There have also been emails from top management about "serious" concerns regarding leaks. So information has become a little harder to come by.
But not impossible. I've been told that the supply constraints are due to supply chain issues regarding the quality of ODDs (optical disc drive) and GPUs (graphics chips). It didn't help that no one in China works for 2 weeks during CNY (Chinese New Year).
And it's confirmed 100% that the HD (hard drive) is moving to 60g standard. Those configurations are in design verification testing right now. I'd bet that this changeover also contributed to the lack of units. When MS changes major sub-assemblies like this, they try not to over produce the old configurations.
So this is a case of poor planning, supply chain and quality issues restricting production. Not demand out stripping capacity (supply)."
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|wow only four comments so far? usually any article involving ms, sony, and nintendo gets really ugly really fast.... everybody too hungover?
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|A guy walks into Radio Shack and asks the clerk, "You got a power cord for a 360?"
The clerk replied, "I don't know if that would be a good deal. I'd probably be losing money on that trade."
Feel better, wrecked?
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|Well it was the older 360s that broke, the newer ones are more reliable.
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|maybe people don't get it anymore cause they know how long it'll take before the console will break's on them LOL
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|well i would have bought an elite but my 360 core hasn't broke yet
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|The Xbox 360 was the first out the door and sold alot of units. Sure Nintendo is winning, but PS3 is still catching up. The 360 also also isn't far behind the PS3 in sales. MS should be proud of the 360 and how well its selling. The 360 is also selling more games than the PS3 because it has better games.
lol they should make me press director at MS.
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|No they shouldn't.
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