So much for a 360.

Well, I tried to score one of those $100 Xbox360 core systems on Amazon today. For those who didn't know, they were offering a promotion where 1,000 360's would go for $100 today at 11 pacific time.

I think I heard Amazon's servers screaming for a sweet mercyful death as I waited at least 3 minutes for each of my multiple open copies of the page to refresh. No dice though.

Sold out in about .05 seconds, I imagine.

Yeh - same problem when they cleared out their stock of CD32's. Net came to a stand-still.

yeah, took almost a minute to refresh amazon.com and they were all gone already.

Was trying to score one for my Birthday since I can't really justify spending more on a gaming system.

Why were they selling them so cheap anyway? I guess they were selling them off quick to make room in their warehouses for the proper next gen consoles from Nintendo and Sony.

Mine's been out of use for about a month now... Test drive has worn itself out finally after god-knows how many hours and after 1 year, the X360 doesn't seem to have any really good games...

Sorry to hear you never got one Evak! Maybe if mine stays out of use for much longer ;)

No, actually, sorry- it weighs so much it'd cost more to ship than i paid for it...!

(Sorry, I'm in an X-bashing mood!)

Heh, I tend to use GameStation's shop window as some kind of barometer as to the popularity of consoles - judging by how many secondhand units there are for sale.

Currently, they have LOADS of old style DS units and PSPs. I still haven't seen a single secondhand DS Lite for sale - presumably loads of people with old DSs traded them in to get the DS Lite?!

There was also a surprising amount of 360s available - not sure what people would be trading them in for as the PS3 and Wii aren't out here yet. I must admit, the 360 doesn't appeal at all to me, though.

Talking of 360, I saw a guy playing Sonic on one in-store - seeing the blue 'hog on non-Sega hardware STILL don't seem right to me, for some reason! :P

Why all the 360 bashing? It's a sweet machine with good games (the best game of the year with Gears of War actually). It's got great downloadable content including full game demos, Live Arcade titles, and now downloadable high definition movies. The controller is excellent, it's actually smaller than the PS3, and from what I can tell it locks up a lot less than Sony's behemoth.

Well, I wasn't 360 bashing - just saying it doesn't appeal to me, personally. ;)

well it seems to be doing well here, about 250,000 sales a month and 4 games per unit sold which is great. I think some of the games are really good too.

I'm mostly waiting for some of the exclusives I loved on the xbox to get new games on the 360. Right now there aren't too many games that I'm interested in.

Was disappointed that PGR3 started with exotic cars rather having you work up to them with sporty cars at the beginning. The first two were probably the most played racing games I have enjoyed to date thanks to the Tony hawk style scoring system and controls that allthough arcadey incorporate enough realism that quite a bit of skill is required to master the controls.

Fight Night 3 is an EA! game, probably the best fighting series I have played in over a decade. If the third one is anything like the first two then it must be brilliant.

Don't have an opinion of Gears of War, its supposed to be the best looking game in the 3d shooter genre made to date. Unfortunately I don't like the character design, always disliked the overgrown chunky warhammer look. So I'm in no hurry to play it, but I expect its really good.

I read that xbox360 has actually managed to sell less since launch than the original xbox did in the same timeframe. They were targetting 10m sales by the end of the year, and are apparently struck at around 4m.

For the record, I am definitely NOT an xbox360 hater - I very nearly bought one a couple of months back, and will probably pick one up in the next year.

I think I'll wait until they go to the 60nm CPU's. It'll probably come w/ a larger HD soon, too, now with the TV downloads and all.

X-Box360 had a really poor selection of games on release and although that's increasing, within a few months everyone is gonna be high as a kite with all the new consoles and new games available for those. I think that once PS3 and Wii are available to buy world wide, the X-Box360 will just slowly fade away like the original X-Box did.

X-Box needs more games made from Japan but I can't see that happening. Next time I'm in Japan I'll take a picture of the X-Box360 section in a random shop and show you how tiny it is. When I as there in June there was nothing about PS3 and Wii and yet the floorspaces for X-Box 360 were tiny, The second hand Nes and Snes section gets more floor space.
I personally can't help but bash the X-Box as I'm yet to find much good about it.

I don't like japanese games and hope they get more Western RTS games. The last few months of saled figures have the 360 selling between 250,000 and 300,000 units per month. The Xbox is the one that is flagging in sales only making about 5000.

A lot of people have been waiting for the wii and PS3 launch or feel that the newer systems are too expensive.

One area that Sony screwed up in is in ignoring western developers and solely focusing on the Japanese market with PS3. Because of this they have lost many of their best selling franchises to the Xbox360 like the next GTA game.

Because of Sony's negligence third party exclusives like GTA are going over to the 360 first with extra content. And even a couple of Japanese ps3 exclusives have been signed over to the 360 in the past week.

I rate most japanese games amongst the worst, final fantasy, MGS, mariom Sonic are all rubbish.

Actually, last I saw it was pushing 8m...

Woah, if the X360 locks up less than the Ps3 then the Ps3 is screwed ;)

(Mine likes to crash)

BTW, the Ps3 is much larger than the original Xbox, i saw today? Thats crazy!

I read it in this month's Edge, so it'd be at least 1 month out of date. However, the point that 360 has sold less than xbox in the same timeframe since each of their respective launches presumably still holds...if true...I need to find a decent online source for a more up to date / reliable comparison.

Yeah, it does seem to be a bit of a beast doesn't it! And apparently, it is *really* heavy too.

Here's one source:
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=14095

i.e. If you were to draw a graph showing the installed user base in the months since their respective launches, PS2 would (obviously) be highest, then the original xbox, then xbox360. If this is true, Microsoft should be worried.

Whilst searching, I did also find a reference to an expectation of hitting 11m units shipped by the end of the year. But it pointed out that MS has had to *ship* many more units than have actually *sold*, due to problems with replacing some of the first generation of hardware, although I find it hard to believe that would have a massive impact.

Statistics, eh? ;)

here's console sales in North america the past few months.

                 PS2           XBX        NGC       360

November 2005    531,000     197,000    272,000   326,000 
December 2005    1,500,000   415,000    606,423   281,441 
January 2006     272,000     89,000     66,000    249,000 
February 2006    299,000     88,000     67,000    161,000 
March 2006       273,000     83,000     63,000    192,000 
April 2006       206,995     38,987     38,028    295,381 
May 2006         231,616     26,353     33,040    220,877 
June 2006        312,000     24,000     51,000    277,000 
July 2006        241,000     12,000     44,000    206,000 
August 2006      262,000     9,000      41,000    204,000 
September 2006   306,517     6,495      42,286    259,458 
October 2006     235,000     3,500      32,000    218,000 
Month PS2 Xbox GameCube Xbox 360

Apparently 360 outsold both PS3 and Wii sales combined over the last week, but thats according to MSN so we should probably wait.

The above figures are NPD figures and don't cover all the stores, I don't think walmart and a few others are included.

Are you saying that PS2 = PS3 and that PS3 has been out since November 2005? NGC = Wii?

You should reread that chart you provided ;)

no there is no PS3 on the chart, the MSN news on PS3 and Wii sales was yesterday and nothing to with the above chart.

Those are just sales figures at retail over the past year but Obviously don't include this month since Nov isn't over yet. Just showing that the 360 is hardly the flop that some characters like Enay like to think.

Some "official" totals of sales of each console after the first year of their launch in North America only and posted on teamxbox:

So in NA, 360 is doing okay compared to xbox at the same point in it's lifecycle. But the other sources I'm seeing say that in the EU, 360 is a bit down on Xbox, and as we all know, 360 is dead in the East...so overall, I'm guessing it's on a par with it's predecessor?

Unless those columns are misaligned, it shows XBox 360 selling less units than PS2? Even now!? Not only is PS2 very old technology ( older than XBox and GameCube even, I think? ) but it's also way out in front already, so you would imagine that PS2 would be close to saturation point by now. And 360 is still selling less units. If that's not a flop, I'm struggling to imagine what would fit your definition.

Now this is more like it:

AMERICAS: http://www.vgcharts.org/usaconscomps.php?name1=X360&name2=XB&type=2

JAPAN: http://www.vgcharts.org/japconscomps.php?name1=X360&name2=XB&type=2&align=0

Based on this data, 360 really has managed to sell less than the original Xbox, in terms of comparing cumulative sales since their launches. But not by much, and in fairness, a lot of that may well have been done to the lack of hardware at launch...

These figures suggest there's not a lot in it, but PS2 has been outselling 360 in America every month for some time...

http://www.vgcharts.org/usaconscomps.php?name1=X360&name2=PS2&type=0

It's not a flop, one expects those kinds of sales figures when the PS2 is the dominant market leader, has the brand recognition, is less than half the price etc.

I don't consider those figures a flop at all, one thing I do think is disappointing is that the original xbox support was ditched so soon.

Absolutely - I don't think the month on month PS2 versus 360 sales comparison means much either. It's the "hardware sales since their launch" profile that I'm interested in.

It's not a flop. It's just not doing anywhere near as well as I (and many others) thought it would have, given it's headstart, given it's apparent capabilities, and given Sony's cock ups. The initial lack of hardware last year, and the lack of a "halo" must-buy title must have hit hard...

One of the interesting stats that can be found on that site, and others, is just how much 360 has totally cannibalised the original xbox user base. Look at the software sales for each in particular. The original Xbox is totally dead, from both MS and the public point of view.

To be honest though, it's always surprised me how PSone (and now PStwo) hardware sales can keep going so strongly in the same territories as their more powerful replacements establish themselves. I mean, it's one thing for software for those platforms to keep going, but the hardware too? For *years*, not just months afterwards?

Probably because the majority of family's cannot afford to replace their sons/daughters hardware every 6 months! As well as not being able to comfortly afford paying for next-gen hardware, full stop!

I also wonder how many mams and dads are going to get into debt just to keep their kids happy this xmas, I dare bet it's a fair few!

Dabz

According to an article in our newspaper today, all thousand were sold within 59 seconds.

I wish my ebay account worked like that! :D

Dabz

What's the point of only showing consoles in North America? That's hardly a fair comparison to world sales, especially considering America is the ONLY place in the world where X-Box is the doing the best trade.

I didn't realise though that the PS2 was still selling THAT well. It's clearly the silent winner, although I remember PS1 outselling N64 and Dreamcast in its day, especially considering it was the worst console (technical wise) of the three.

They were the best stats I could lay my hands on. I'd love to see worldwide stats, but that site only gave NA & Japan stats. Even so, even the NA stats demonstrate the "less than stellar" hardware sales...

Ahh well, at least the X360 does more than just games, and that's a nice feature-laden console, trust me on that one. I mean, you can d/l all sorts of HD-quality movie clips and trailers, and nice game demos, and what not, can't beat that. I also see that Xbox Live is doing like Vongo where you can actually d/l feature-length movies for a fee now? That's always nice to see Microsoft thinking one step ahead of the computer world, yet bringing it to a console that's only $400! A lot better than a $1,500 PC that can do the same stuff.

I went out 3 month back and bought the PS2 AGAIN. I sold it, a couple year ago i think. But some good games have came out for it. Tekken 5, Soul Calibur 3, i liked Haunting Grounds too. Oh and Sing Star is great for having people round and singing like a loony. You have got that Buzz Quiz thing too. Good little party console. I would attribute those types of things to the PS2 doing well. Nice accessories :o)

I was thinking about the PS2 the other day, and something occurred to me. There are so many games coming out for the PS2, to cater for practically every taste. I cam across Naval Ops: Warship Gunner the other day. Old game, bit rough with the voice acting, but great to play! There's a whole load of great Armoured Core games. PS2 has a history of all these less well-known games appealing to lots of niches.

To take the Armoured Core example, PS2 has lots of these games. Some might say too many.

360 has Chromehounds.

It's like Microsoft poach the single best example of PS2 games, and puts them on its console.

To put it another way, PS2 seems to be like an all-you-can-eat buffet, 360 is like a really good dessert menu.

Erm, yeah.

I argue good.

Also, Ross C, good point about the party games. Xbox had Fusion Frenzy, and that's about it. I don't think 360 has any party games. Yet.

well. a big reason for so many obscure games on the PS2 was that Sony were the best established platform with a huge headstart over the Xbox. The NGC just didn't get much of a look in from the start.

In 2002 when I was working on a couple of commercial games, despite our efforts it was almost impossible to get publishers interest in the Xbox. Not because it was a bad system. It was because there was such a huge userbase for PS2.

Our games were going to be released on Xbox and PS2 but PS2 had a 75% prority in the deal. In the end Xbox was dropped entirely.

That was a problem from the start for Xbox, being the newbie underdog. It's not quite the same now, and even some japanese developers have been announcing that they are no longer developing exclusively for PS3. Last week 2 PS2 exclusives were announced for 360 too.

I expect this time around, Sony and MS will be on much closer grounds and there will be a lot less to choose between them since both systems have very strong publisher support whilst previously Publshers were only interested in PS2 not caring that developers favoured the xbox hardware and SDK for developing games.

That vgcharts page is cool. The XBox 360 is nearly as successful as the N64! Must be all the kiddie games.

It has sold a lot of games, for the weekend that PS3 was launched PS3 was selling fewer games than consoles about 0.9 probably because of all the ebay sales. Whilst 360 still has about a 4 game per unit conversion rate overall. Which is supposedly the highest ever.

Yup, I thought it was quite a good find too.

Woah! Now that is interesting. Okay, so there are obvious reasons *why* (Mario64 on N64 launch, no hardware at 360 launch), but still...

It's looking more and more like Microsoft have missed their opportunity to pip PS3 to the punch. I guess this holiday season may yet bear out a few extra sales on the back of people not being to get a PS3, although I personally think Wii is much more likely to benefit from that dynamic than 360.

That is the one thing Microsoft do seem to be doing really well on, which will be boosting their coffers nicely. I suspect that's more down to the market than their actions or the software titles. I would guess that many of the early adopters that bought 360s last year would normally have bought a PS3 too when it came out - instead they might have bought more 360 titles than othrwise? i.e. Because 360 has had such a long headstart on the others in this generation, the attach rate is probably higher.

Also, I assume the attach rate includes XBLA? I bet that has had a significant affect on that figure too.

Those graphs are certainly interesting, even the PSP outsells the X-Box 360, it's on about a par with the SNES and almost the same as the original X-Box.

> It's looking more and more like Microsoft have
> missed their opportunity to pip PS3 to the punch.

Dunno what else they could've done to be honest, they had their console out almost a year before Nintendo and Sony to try and beat everyone else to the next gen race, they've had the whole market to themselves. Before though X-Box was a newer console than PS2 and with slightly better hardware, but now it's going to be an older console to PS3 and inferior spec wise too, an older console than the Wii as well. If MS thought sales were mediocre now, how are they gonna feel in a years time when Wii and PS3 start to take into the market? It'll be like Dreamcast Mark II.

It all depends on who gets the more popular games first from third parties, and who gets the first exclusives. It's a bit early to say at the moment since everyones best games keep getting put back and Sony aren't as popular with a lot of western publishers.

360 still has an advantage if they can get a few mmore top selling games out before Sony get their console shipping to meet demand.

Gears of war sold quicker than Halo 2, a couple more like that early on and publishers will go where the most games can be sold. Thats how the PS2 dominated the last time, their huge userbase meant that games were much more likely to sell on that platform and so they mostly ignored the other systems.

I think PS3 is overpriced by some considerable margine, so it may not sell all that well once the early adopters have paid up.

I find both the 360 and PS3 overpriced despite the tech, and the wii overpriced for lack of tech and games that apperal to me.

I think the plan for the Wii was to be under $100 but they added some on board memory for saving games and downloads and apparently updated the hardware a little as well. Looking at the other systems $250 seems like a bargain although I can't really see it supporting too many games you might like. Zelda is really pretty sweet but it might be too kiddish for you still. It's definitely the most grown up of them yet but I don't think the developers can help themselves from applying a thick layer of Disney like gooshiness to their games. It works for me though ;)

I've been thinking of another PlayStation-based system, between the PS2 or PSP, but I don't see myself going with a PS3 anytime soon, tho, for obvious reason. $600 is not my cup of tea for just one console in the PS3, when you can have a Wii60 combo for just a little more. Which would you choose? Then again, having that I have a Nintendo DS as it is, the PSP may not prove TOO much worthy, except for the extra bells and whistles like the UMD movie player, MP3 player, or photo slideshow features. Outside of that, the games are pure junk as opposed to the NDS.

As far as the X360, it's more than just a gaming console, we all know that. It's a DVD player (HD-DVD player if you so choose to spend the extra $200), it can download movie and game trailers from the Internet, it has a Vongo-type service where you can d/l full-length movies for a small fee, there's USB ports that you can use either controllers, or hook up an iPod or media player to, a digital camera, anything like that. It's almost like a budget computer in disguise of a game console, like most game consoles that come out these days.

Now that I think about it, didn't the PSP come with a USB port that you can connect via USB or WiFi with the X360? I haven't noticed. Oh, maybe the PS3 and PSP connection may be better, but at least the X360 will allow media to be synched.