The 2008 holiday season has come and gone. In a time where the economy and layoffs are constantly on our minds and televisions, it's nice to see some sort of good news come out of the gaming industry.
Both Sony and Microsoft announced positive sales figures and new milestones for their current console offerings. For Microsoft, holiday sales were strong since Black Friday back in November, where its Xbox 360 was outselling Sony's PlayStation 3 by a margin of 3-to-1. These strong sales numbers helped Microsoft sell 28 million Xbox 360s by the end of 2008. The new total now puts the Redmond gaming console eight million units ahead of the PlayStation 3, although still far behind the 45 million mark just hit by Nintendo's Wii (via VG Chartz).
Along with the 28 million 360's sold (nearly 4 million more than total original Xbox sales), is news that Microsoft now has over 17 million Xbox Live users, which the powers of mathematics shows is almost 61% of the total console ownership. With online (and exclusive) titles like Halo 3 and Gears of War 2, its no surprise to see so many 360 owners playing online.
As of late, the economy has been especially unkind to Sony. Still losing money on every PS3 made, and several of its major divisions losing money, the electronics giant is in the proverbial cross hairs. However, despite seeing a greater than 18 percent drop in year console sales, the PlayStation 3 also had a fantastic holiday season. With sales up 130 percent from the subpar sales figures of November of 2008, Sony finally has something to celebrate.
"Early internal data points to an increase of more than 130 percent of PS3 hardware sales for the holiday season—since Black Friday—and we're also seeing a growth of nearly 40 percent in total PS3 hardware sales for the calendar year," said SCEA VP of sales Ian Jackson. "We remain confident this momentum will continue into the new year."
While Sony and Microsoft are celebrating their respective good news, Nintendo is still way in front of both companies. With over 45 million Wii's sold and its handheld DS approaching the 100 million mark, Sony and Microsoft are locked in an epic battle for second place. Plus, with the Xbox 360 now past the three year mark, perhaps there is an Xbox 3... or Xbox "720" around the corner.
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someone screwed up on the title, it should be ps3 not ps2
Its funny to watch a machine like the PS3 get DOMINATED by a glorified Gamecube with a gimmick controller.
how about its funny to watch both powerhouse consoles get dominated all year by the wii. guess its back to the drawing Bord for the MS crew with the crashbox a $199 price tag still can't put them on top.
Its funny to watch a machine like the PS3 get DOMINATED by a glorified Gamecube with a gimmick controller.
Yup.
Increasing Wii sales isn't good in any way shape or form.
The Wii is just dumbing down gaming. Sure there will be a bigger market for games, but does that matter when most of them will only be entertaining when you're drunk with a bunch of friends?
Its funny to watch a machine like the PS3 get DOMINATED by a glorified Gamecube with a gimmick controller.
It's funny you mention that, the Wii achieves Backwards compatibility with the Gamecube because it's the exact same parts just at a higher clock speed.
wii = overclocked gamecube!!!
The 'dumbing down' effect is likely very small.
Most of the people who's gaming could be dumbed down, feel like you do, and won't buy the wii in the fist place.
The wii is mostly new, simpler gamers.
There may be some real, hard core gamers who go wii and may have their gaming dumbed down like some have said. There is also a slight transfer of this to other consoles, for example the viva pinata, movie trivia, and other family games that might have otherwise not made it to x360. Many of those are there so the x360 gets a slice of the dumbing down.
I still stand by the idea though that the vast majority of gamers that are hard core enough to be dumbed down are, by the same logic, too hard core to allow that to happen.
Just look at the numbers after all. x360 has sold more than the original xbox now. That would have been hard to do if very many of those 45 million wii's were bought by original xbox owners; despite some people having both.