
We're sure the gang in Redmond is pouring the champagne right about now, and with 2007 shaping up to be one of the best years in games evar, they might want to stock up on a little more bubbly. Check out the entire press release after the break, and then hit the "read" link for an expanded breakdown of the NPD figures.
The results are in
Consumers have cast their votes and Xbox 360 was the best-selling next-generation console of the 2006 holiday season in the United States, outselling the PlayStation 3 and Wii combined in December and outselling all next-generation consoles in November and December. The Xbox 360 garnered a 51% market share in the United States for December 2006. (US NPD, January)
Gamers get into Gear
Like "Halo," "Grand Theft Auto," and "Zelda," "Gears of War," is tracking to be one of the best-selling video games of all time. By the end of next week, "Gears of War" will have sold more than 3 million copies to consumers worldwide in just 10 weeks.
Following on the success of "Gears of War," 2007 will quite simply be the best year for great games in Xbox history.
- By holiday 2007, there will be more than double the 160 next-generation games available on Xbox 360 today, including highly anticipated MGS titles such as "Halo 3," "Blue Dragon," "Crackdown," "Forza Motorsport 2," "Lost Odyssey," Mass Effect," "Project Gotham Racing 4" and "Shadowrun."
- Third party publishers continue to flock to the Xbox 360 for its high definition fidelity, ease of development and unmatched online capabilities. Surefire hits coming from third parties in 2007 include "Assassin's Creed" (Ubisoft), "Dance Dance Revolution Universe™" (Konami), "Grand Theft Auto IV" (Rockstar), "Guitar Hero 2™" (Activision) and exclusives like "BioShock" (2K) and "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" (Ubisoft).
- This week, we announced more than 20 million Xbox Live Arcade games have been downloaded to date, including "Assault Heroes," "Small Arms," "DOOM" and this week's release "Ms. Pac-Man." Other popular games will join Xbox Live Arcade's library as the platform's popularity continues to grow, including the highly anticipated "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" from Konami and "Heavy Weapon" from PopCap.
Xbox Live-The Largest Social Network in the Living Room
With more than 5 million active members, two-million messages crossing the network a day, and three-billion game play hours logged to date, Xbox Live has become the largest social network on television. And Xbox Live innovations like Achievements, Gamerscore, and Reputation are changing the way people play games and share their games and entertainment experiences with friends.
Xbox Live is also an on-demand culture, where entertainment powerhouses like CBS, Lion's Gate, MTV Networks, Turner Broadcasting, Paramount Pictures, UFC, and Warner Brothers are entertaining one of the most captive 18-34 year old communities online today. Seven weeks ago, Xbox Live and its studio partners began offering hit TV shows and movies in high and standard definition for download. According to the studios, the social games and entertainment network has already become #2 in Internet downloads of hit TV shows and movies, but #1 in high definition and #1 in the living room-where it matters most.
The countdown is on
200 million Windows gamers around the world can mark their calendars as the availability of Windows Vista on January 30 draws near.
During the CES keynote address, Bill Gates and Robbie Bach demonstrated the ease and simplicity of connecting people who play games on a Windows Vista-based PC to friends who play on Xbox 360 using "UNO" (Mattel Inc.) - one of the many new, upcoming casual games optimized for Windows Vista and one of the top casual games currently on Xbox Live.
At CES, Microsoft also announced the Games for Windows portfolio, which includes "Shadowrun" and "Halo 2," the first titles to utilize Live services to connect the gaming experience between Windows Vista-based PCs and Xbox 360. And who doesn't want one Gamertag, one friends list, one set of achievements, as well as voice chat and game invites across Xbox 360 and Windows Vista? It's something only Microsoft can offer the world's largest population of game players.
The overall games line-up, all that take advantage of the new operating system's revolutionary technology and more user-friendly gaming features, include:
- "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures" (Eidos Interactive/Funcom)
- "Age of Empires® III: The Warchiefs" (Microsoft Game Studios/Ensemble Studios)
- "Alan Wake" (Microsoft Game Studios/Remedy)
- "BioShock" (2K Games/Irrational Games)
- "Company of Heroes" (THQ Inc./Relic Entertainment)
- "Crysis" (EA Partners/Crytek)
- "Disney·Pixar's Ratatouille" (THQ/Heavy Iron Studios)
- "Flight Simulator X" (Microsoft Game Studios/ACES Studio)
- "Frontlines: Fuels of War" (THQ/Kaos Studios™)
- "Halo 2" (Microsoft Game Studios/Bungie Studios)
- "Hellgate: London" (EA Partners/NAMCO BANDAI Games/Flagship Studios)
- "LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy" (LucasArts/TT Games)
- "Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar" (Midway/Turbine Inc.)
- "Marvel Universe Online" (Microsoft Game Studios/Cryptic Studios)
- "Rail Simulator" (EA Partners/Kuju Entertainment)
- "Shadowrun" (Microsoft Game Studios/FASA Studio)
- "Supreme Commander" (THQ/Gas Powered Games)
- "World in Conflict" (Sierra Entertainment/Massive Entertainment)
- "Zoo Tycoon® 2: Extinct Animals" (Microsoft Game Studios/Blue Fang Games)
- "Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania®" (Microsoft Game Studios/Blue Fang Games)
- "Zoo Tycoon 2: Zookeeper Collection" (Microsoft Game Studios/Blue Fang Games)
Without a doubt, 2007 is off with a bang and we wish you fun and games, all year long.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-12-2007 @ 11:08AM
Josh said...
Now if they do the same in Christmas 07' then that will be impressive. To beat 2 launch consoles during the holidays is great and all but expected.
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 11:30AM
DCFC Fan said...
Technically, the PS2 outsold the Xbox360 and even the Nintendo DS outsold that.
* DS: 1.6 million (9.2 million life-to-date)
* PlayStation 2: 1.4 million (37.1 million life-to-date)
* Xbox 360: 1.1 million (4.5 million life-to-date)
* PSP: 953.2k (6.7 million life-to-date)
* Game Boy Advance: 850.7k (35.1 million life-to-date)
* Wii: 604.2k (1.1 million life-to-date)
* PS3: 490.7k (687.3k life-to-date)
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 11:48AM
jkdoug said...
Good news for the 360, sure, but tempered by the fact that a system that's more than SIX YEARS OLD still out sold it. Ouch.
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 11:52AM
Tonicboy said...
Ok, I don't quite get this math. If Xbox 360 sold 1.1 million units, and Wii sold 604.2k units, and the Wii had 5100 more units (which sold), then wouldn't the tally be 1,100,000 to 605,300? The Wii would have needed 495,800 more units to tie the 360 in December.
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 12:39PM
Richard Mitchell said...
Tonicboy,
I was referring to combined sales of Wii and PS3. The Wii, naturally, would fly off the shelves. So 5100 more Wiis plus the PS3s = 1.1 million total.
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 1:44PM
Ciaran said...
Do you think had more PS3's been available, the PS3 would have outsold the Xbox 360?
Also, I think it's surprising that for the cheaper consoles, it's always just the PS2. The Gamecube and Xbox are actually cheaper and much better value!
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 2:25PM
Dancingtosirens said...
@ Ciaran
I dont know if more PS3's would have necessarily helped.
Steam for the PS3 has slowed down to a crawl from what everyone has seen, and you can find an abundance of them in stock in stores now.
So I can't say that it would have helped, but all the more power to the Wii and 360
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 2:44PM
SuicideNinja said...
"Good news for the 360, sure, but tempered by the fact that a system that's more than SIX YEARS OLD still out sold it. Ouch."
This is a lame argument. Of course the PS2 outsold the Xbox 360. Similarly, the PS1 still outsold the PS2 back in the day when the latter was $300. The price difference alone makes the fact that the 360 did so well impressive.
The PS2 is established and already has thousands of games (even though only a couple dozen are worth playing). If the 360 would have outsold the PS2, it would have been more surprising than anything.
Anyway, let's throw a little math at it:
The PS2 sold %20 more than Xbox 360, but the 360 is also %230-%300 of the price of the PS2.
Let's make this easy and even assume all 360's sold were core systems:
1.1m x $300 = $330,000,000 of product
1.4m x $130 = $182,000,000 of product
Now which is more impressive?
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 3:52PM
Jonah Falcon said...
Um, the PS2 is $130 and basically an Atari 2600 now. Who cars?
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 3:52PM
Jonah Falcon said...
Er, "cares".
Microsoft is still pushing Zoo Tycoon, listing 3 titles alongside Supreme Commander and Biosock? LOL
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 4:32PM
jkdoug said...
I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas because my wife couldn't find a PS3 in stores. That's just simple economics. I'm not saying the 360 isn't fun, especially since I have a dozen older Xbox games that I can play on it, too (except Destroy All Humans 2).
What's more amusing to me is the companies boasting about the number of consoles shipped. Microsoft says, "We've shipped more than 10 million consoles worldwide!" The sales numbers are less than half that, though. Similar story for Sony, except that the difference is smaller because the console is newer.
$330 million versus $182 million still doesn't account for how much of that is profit versus manufacturing costs. I see your point, though.
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 5:59PM
Derka said...
Considering both the Wii and Ps3 are not widely available yet, this isn't really surprising.
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 6:29PM
John Mayock said...
I think most people are concerned with cost when making these decisions. The number of people who bought wiis becuase they were affordable has to have been so high compared to an "expensive" 360 at £280 GBP or a "very expensive" ps3 at (more than 280, not in uk but imagine near 400+ GBP). I've got a wii becuase it was cheap and fits well alongside a 360 or a ps3. They are all good consoles, no one is going to lose. Not you the consumer or the manufacturer.
Reply
1-12-2007 @ 8:01PM
Imadogg said...
jkdoug - "What's more amusing to me is the companies boasting about the number of consoles shipped. Microsoft says, "We've shipped more than 10 million consoles worldwide!" The sales numbers are less than half that, though."
The 10 million consoles shipped worldwide is just that, shipped all over the world. The 4.5 million sold is just North American sales though...
Reply