Microsoft and Sony fall short in holiday video game console sales
UPDATE: According to Engadget.com, NPD has refuted the numbers that are the basis for the story below. So take the below with a grain of salt, although they don't sound wildly off to us. But it certainly explains why I couldn't find the original press release link on the NPD Web site.
New NPD estimates of US sales of video gaming consoles for the fourth quarter were as follows:
Now, Blackfriars did some estimates back in December of the sales of XBox 360s and predicted that Microsoft had to sell about 4.1 million units in the holiday quarter to make its press release goal of selling 10 million units by the end of 2006. So the open question is how Microsoft did outside the US, since NPD's estimates are US-only.
Blackfriars' estimate is that international XBox 360 sales were only about another million units, meaning that XBox 360 sales are currently at about 8.9 to 9 million units as of the beginning of this year. Now this isn't a significant problem for Microsoft, since it probably just shipped another million units to retailers on December 31, since its press release explicitly counted units that were in transit or storage for subsequent sale. However, for video game producers and retailers, though, those units don't really count in the installed base.
Now Microsoft isn't the only company falling short here. Sony had predicted selling 2 million PS3s this holiday season, and while it undoubtedly sold well in Japan, we estimate that supply constraints kept its total sales only to about a million or so world-wide.
But of course, the big winner here is Nintendo, who managed to sell 1.8 million Wiis in the US last quarter with only six weeks of product availabilty. And when you add in Japanese sales, where Nintendo is much favored over Microsoft, odds are that Wii actually outselling XBox 360 world-wide at the moment.
New NPD estimates of US sales of video gaming consoles for the fourth quarter were as follows:
| XBox 360: | 2,000,000 |
| Nintendo Wii: | 1,800,000 |
| Sony Playstation 3: | 750,000 |
Now, Blackfriars did some estimates back in December of the sales of XBox 360s and predicted that Microsoft had to sell about 4.1 million units in the holiday quarter to make its press release goal of selling 10 million units by the end of 2006. So the open question is how Microsoft did outside the US, since NPD's estimates are US-only.
Blackfriars' estimate is that international XBox 360 sales were only about another million units, meaning that XBox 360 sales are currently at about 8.9 to 9 million units as of the beginning of this year. Now this isn't a significant problem for Microsoft, since it probably just shipped another million units to retailers on December 31, since its press release explicitly counted units that were in transit or storage for subsequent sale. However, for video game producers and retailers, though, those units don't really count in the installed base.
Now Microsoft isn't the only company falling short here. Sony had predicted selling 2 million PS3s this holiday season, and while it undoubtedly sold well in Japan, we estimate that supply constraints kept its total sales only to about a million or so world-wide.
But of course, the big winner here is Nintendo, who managed to sell 1.8 million Wiis in the US last quarter with only six weeks of product availabilty. And when you add in Japanese sales, where Nintendo is much favored over Microsoft, odds are that Wii actually outselling XBox 360 world-wide at the moment.
Technorati Tags: Blackfriars, Sony, Playstation 3, Microsoft, XBox 360, Nintendo, Wii, Marketing,
Labels: Microsoft, nintendo, playstation-3, sony, wii, xbox-360
posted by Carl Howe at
8:45 AM
| View blog reactions
| 
