The NPD Group’s recent numbers for hardware and software sales last month shed some interesting light on the performance of the big 3 giants and the console business on the whole. Microsoft is now touting this past November as the most successful month in the history of the Xbox 360 console. Just take it from Aaron Greenberg, Xbox 360’s Director of Product Management:
This boastful statement comes despite a year on year dip on hardware sales from 836,000 last year to 819,500 this year. $838 million was spent on Xbox 360 hardware and software in November accounting for the majority of November’s $1.4 billion spent on non-PC sales.
“November was the biggest month in the history of the Xbox 360 business”
Greenberg attributes much of November’s success to the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which has already sold more than 6 million units on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. 4.2 million of those units were sold for the 360, while just 1.87 million were sold for the PS3.
So why was MW2 more successful on the 360 than the PS3? Greenberg attributes it to Xbox Live. The game shattered records for the service as 5.2 million multiplayer hours were logged on MW2’s launch day and Live also hosted over 2 million concurrent users for the first time ever.
I hope Microsoft can keep up the good work now that sales for Modern Warfare 2 have died down a bit, but they may still be facing huge competition from Nintendo who still outsold its competitors in hardware sales in November. What do you think about Microsoft’s success and do you think it will be sustained in the coming holiday season?
Source: GameSpot
