Network now...NEWS
360 Sells 8m in Europe
Microsoft's European gaming arm announced on Monday that Xbox 360 has sold 8 million consoles to date in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) territories, citing sales estimates based on GfK-ChartTrack.
A statement from the firm said the Xbox 360 has a lead of more than 1 million units over rival PlayStation 3 in the region.
According to Microsoft, Christmas 2008 sales of Xbox 360 almost doubled over the previous year, thanks in no small part to a September price cut. The company said this most recent Christmas holiday was "the biggest sales period ever in the [Xbox] brand’s six-year European history."
Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business regional VP Chris Lewis said Microsoft is "poised to build on this success in 2009."
Analyst Nick Gibson with Games Investor Counsulting added, "According to GFK Chart Track data, the Xbox 360 recorded in excess of 100 percent growth in December sales compared to 2007 across the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain, well ahead of any other console. It also recorded comfortably the highest rate of year-on-year growth for the final quarter of 2008 overall.”
Parker Consulting analyst said early returns for December sales data indicate "a significant sales increase year on year."
In Europe, Microsoft's console previously hit 6 million units in September and 7 million in November.
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Xbox360 has the best catalogue, yes, but its also "fairly unreliable" to say the least. We (consumers) are setting a bad precedent, we are sending console makers the message "release your machine a soon as possible, no matter it works or not, we'll buy it either way".
This generation of consoles is the sloppiest ever (RROD, 360's disc scratch, blu-ray drive break-down on PS3, sony's infamous after-sale support, game patching the day after release) I'm skipping it. I'll stick to my PC until next-next-gen arrives.
Fair points, canuter. This generation was probably the most "experimental" and "transitional" ever for the console industry with the convergence of not just hardware advances, but fuller adoption of online. Unfortunately, that has made this quite painful for consumers as companies struggle while experimenting with price points, delivery methods, etc. and are setting dangerous precedents with "title updates" like PC gamers have had to endure for a long time (what we call "patches!)".
To be fair, PC has it's own set of head-aches as there are plenty of same day patches, DRM and typical hardware support issues (GTAIV being a recent, notable example).
Fair enough. But PCs are hardly strangers to crashing/freezing and definitely not strangers to patches.
They deserve the success. 360 has by far the best games library and thats all that matters.
That's a fair point.. but aside from the exclusive titles. Wii and PS3 also have a similar backcatalogue. Xbox wins on price everytime though in my opinion.
@Top-Dollar - what would that say about the PS3 if consumers prefer to buy 3-5 problematic 360's rather than 1 PS3??? I wouldn't be bragging about that (not to mention that it's simply not true) as it's a pretty damning indictment about how poorly Sony has delivered this gen.
You say Sony have delivered poorly this generation. How so ? aside from not liking the price and awaiting a price drop.
This year has brought Sony and Microsoft users titles being released of both systems, aside from the obvious exceptions, hardware and firmware improvements, entry level blue ray is excellent Sony hard disk can be removed and replaced with any other and not reliant on Microsoft Firmware allowing you to drop in any size you want. Still no subscription fee and the front end is none intrusive PSN has its own section and isn't integrative unlike NXE.
Don't get me wrong the Xbox360 offers a great package, the back catalogue is intimidating for sure. Games are great, but not that dissimilar to those on the Sony. It's a great piece of entry level hardware, great price and value for money, great service with live, although £40 a year is £40 more than Sony and the point system when buying something on the Marketplace in comparison to knowing exactly what you've spent on PSN
I guess whichever you buy, both have their pro's and con's. But equally both are top notch systems, you just have to decide how badly you want blue-ray or that coveted black elite Xbox :D
@savagehenry - I've had a PS3 since 12/31/06 (and have a PSP, PS2 and Sony receiver) and agree that it NOW has a decent catalog of games and features (although it's still behind 360 in online features and overall quantity/quality of game library). Where Sony did poorly was in over-promising and under-delivering.
The 360 launched with a standard set of rules that ALL developers had to follow ensuring standardization and healthy adoption of those features. By contrast, PS3 has a laissez-faire approach (out of necessity since they simply weren't ready) which has resulted in segmenting their user base and uneven adoption of features. Rumble, voicechat, trophies are just a few examples of this problem. Even Blu-Ray suffers from this approach with some Blu-Ray players supporting BD-Live and many stand-alone players not supporting it.
Sony lost it's way the last few years (not just the gaming division), suffering from hubris, and are now paying the price more than their competitors. Hopefully, being in last place will provide Sony the incentive to return to form next generation. I just don't understand the apologist attitudes of some of the Sony supporters on this site. I've purchased many Sony products over the years, but that doesn't mean I have to blindly support all of their decisions and think they're infallible (that's not targeted at you, savagehenry). I simply feel MS has done the best job this generation, despite the obviously significant problem of quality control.
I can't really comment on all the things that Sony has under delivered on, nor can I comment on whether Sony have or haven't dropped the ball or not, the only thing that really annoyed me was the lack of backwards compatibility for the PAL territories. My experience of both consoles thus far has been very good in fact through my gaming history I've not bought a console and thought that it could have been money best spent elsewhere, even being a former owner of an Atari Jaguar. All hardware manufacturer are guilty of having made promises they couldn't keep, what matters though is, how it get's received by the public and developers alike. At the moment I see no shortage of games or consumers whichever system you choose.
Thus far though I have been incredible happy with the PS3 and Xbox360 both are awesome machines and the games are just as good and of similar quality. There doesn't really seem to be that much separating the two in terms of what they can achieve. So I find it interesting that you are looking past all of that a tool a few very minor issues that may or may not be resolved. In terms of core function i.e. playing games both consoles produce almost identical results
One thing I would say though and this isn't to the detriment of the hardware or its capabilities or to those who own either of them. The PS3 frontend does offer the user a more serious and mature experience, compared to that of Microsoft NXE. It also reflects in the design and build quality of the box, the extra features such as a Browser, Playstation Network, Home, Life, access to other home media servers and a very good blue ray platform. All making for a very powerful entertainment station. Sony can be forgiven for silliness with Firmware, Blue Ray, Voice Chat and Dual Shock 3 as all work and have been implemented successfully although I agree there still need to be some work.
Well put.
grognard66 said:
what would that say about the PS3 if consumers prefer to buy 3-5 problematic 360's rather than 1 PS3???
________
There is no cure for idiocy.
So where are all the smart people and why aren't they buying the PS3? 140 million people were smart enough to buy PS2s, but for some reason only about 17 million or so of them were smart enough to buy PS3s so far.
hehe
Selling a million more over the younger PS3 is an ill omen for Sony, especially with recent rumblings that the entire company is in trouble and will inevitably shut down factories.
Really, who's going to buy that behemoth in this economy? Come on, price cut! do it sony, do eeeeeet! the competition demands it!
Cheers, microsoft, on the continued success.
P.S. -- yes, I am being deliberately provocative. But i can't help it! there's too many sony-faithful here who think the messiah will come and reinvigorate their system in spite of the stream of continually dismal current-gen news for the company.
At least Edge didn't resort to simple sensationalism by stating that Sony might close down their gaming division. The economy isn't good for business - so Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are all hurting. Sony being a million behind on Microsoft could also be viewed as "only" - bearing in mind that their machine was released later. In this economy, a lot of people seem to be interested in the arcade version of the 360 - which, in my opinion, isn't a very interesting purchase... as it's noisy as hell. All in all, the only worthy version at the moment, in my opinion, is an Elite - as that one is on par with the PS3...
...and Fallout 3 *does* look better on the former while Little Big Planet and MGS4 are reasons to (also) get the latter... ;)
i'm not terribly concerned with quality. When posed to choose between spending $200 and $400, the consumer usually tends towards the cheaper, especially when they lose their job, pension and mortgage. People are cheap. I am too.
Oooh, you're going to hear it for that one. That's blasphemy. To not only talk about the PS3 in such a negative way but also its followers? People can talk about the big hunk of plastic that is the 360 all day, but don't say a word about the ex-900lb gorilla Sony.
Challenge savant finally yesterday, now I gotta borrow my friend's RB guitar so I can get 100% solo. I'm going to get his expert impossible challenge for him. Then I just need to tackle the endless 2...without my 360 shutting off...thinking about picking up the drums again. RB2 drums better than RB1 drums enough to warrant a purchase? I found the RB1 drums for only 40 bucks, RB2 wireless ones are 80-90. Do RB1 drums work with GHWT?
no clue. i hear the RB2 drums are far superior to the RB1 ones -- but i'm too cheap to bother upgrading.
I'll never get that 100% solo achievement. not till the RB guitar is as good or better than the GH equivalent. RB is the better game, but redoctane sure knows how to make a plastic ukelele.
Yes RB1 drums do work with GHWT. At least it does on the PS2. I assume it's the same case with the 360
I'll look into it. I'd like to save 40 bucks. Thanks for the info.
@nickgamertag01 - here's a compatilibility chart between various RB and GH instruments:
http://www.joystiq.com/Instrument-Compatibility-Matrix/
Thanks.
Wow, impressive numbers! Looks like the price cut came at the right time.
Only 8m. Piss poor when you think of the DS/PS2 numbers in that region.
8m? I bet a good percentage of those were consumers buying their 3rd/4th or 5th system!
Maybe 80%? Maybe only one person bought one but he's on his 8 millionth console? ^^
8 million is pretty good IMO, 1 mil ahead of PS3 (I know the 360 had a little over a year head start so its not much to brag about). But 8 million is solid.