X-bit labs

Nintendo Wii Recaptures Leadership in the U.S., Sales of Xbox 360 Down – NPD.

Category: Multimedia

by Anton Shilov

[ 11/18/2007 | 01:07 PM ]

The success of Halo 3 game helped Microsoft Corp. to sell considerably more Xbox 360 game consoles in October than it sells normally, however, Nintendo Wii got back to position of the most popular game machine in the USA, according to NPD Group, a leading market tracking firm.

Microsoft Xbox 360 game console was sold in 366 thousand units quantity in October, whereas about 519 thousand of gamers preferred Nintendo Wii game console. Price-cut to $499 that occurred in the second half of the month did not help Sony to boost sales of the PlayStation 3 compared to the previous month: only about 121 thousand were sold through, less than two thousand compared to the previous month. Sales of Sony PlayStation 2 continued to decline. In fact, combined sales of both PS2 and PS3 in the U.S. were lower than sales of the Xbox 360 alone, according to figures released by NPD.

On the whole, the unit market of non-portable game consoles was down 13% sequentially in October with only Nintendo Wii enjoying considerably unit sales increase. Sony PlayStation 3 gained slightly, whereas Microsoft Xbox 360 sold in considerably less compared to the previous month.

Nintendo sustains its leadership in the market of portable game consoles with 458 thousand of Nintendo DS sold through, whereas sales of Sony PlayStation Portable remained flat with 286 thousand of devices acquired by end-users. It is interesting to note that thanks to availability of PSP slim, Sony managed to ship the same amount of its portable game devices compared to the previous month, whereas Nintendo DS dropped. Shipments figures for Game Boy Advance were not available.

Strong sales of Nintendo Wii once again proof overall popularity of the game console, whereas relatively good acceptance of Microsoft Xbox 360 emphasizes the success of Halo 3 game. Meanwhile, flat sales of Sony PlayStation 3 despite of price-cut seem disappointing. On the other hand, availability of $399 model starting from the 2^nd November may actually revive sales of Sony’s latest game machines.