Xbox 360 Owns Nearly Half of Console Market

[Karloff]

Xbox 360 Owns Nearly Half of Console Market

Own a console? Odds are, it's an Xbox, says Microsoft Marketing Officer.

Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer, claims that Xbox 360 makes up 47% of the total console market, attributing that success to both the Kinect and Xbox LIVE. Xbox LIVE alone claims more than 40 million members, and Mehdi's figures put retail sales of the 360 since launch at more than $56 billion.

"To date," said Mehdi, outlining plans for the future, "our success with Xbox has been led by a box in the living room...With Xbox on Windows 8 devices, we rapidly accelerate the reach of Xbox entertainment from more than 60 million people to hundreds of millions of people worldwide." That's a huge customer pool, and Microsoft wants as many of them as it can grab.

Xbox holds a significant market share, but it's not all roses. Mehdi didn't choose to dwell on earlier financial statements, published back in April, that indicated Xbox revenues had dipped about 33%. There are also other legal problems [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117394-Judge-Recommends-Banning-Xbox-Imports-to-the-US ] that might impact on future Xbox sales within the US.

At the time, Microsoft claimed that a significant portion of the Xbox loss was due to increased research and development costs, with no indication as to where that R&D dosh might be going. Given that E3 is upon us, it's possible we're about to find out where some, at least, of that money went.

Sources: Gamasutra [http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/05/29/xbox-beyond-the-box.aspx]

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[Terminate421]

They won't ban Xbox from the US at this point, considering how popular it is.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Thats impressive being that its their second console. Although im sure alot of that maybe came from the fiasco that was PS3. I had the PS1 and PS2 and Xbox, loved them both to death, but the cost of the PS3 was at launch made the 360 more viable option. Plus most games are on both consoles now, GTA and FF being the main ones. Silent Hill, Metal Gear etc etc Consoles have very few console only titles, guess only Nintendo still do, though i don't like their games.

I will still buy the new Xbox as im a creature of habit, but with the PS4, as long as Sony dont take their consumers for granted (which i think they did with the PS3 as they had a huge market share with the PS2) they will pick up alot of their lost market shares. WiiU i think is doomed, especially after the Wii, most see it as a gimmick machine and unfortunately i feel this will reflect on the WiiU. Although i could be wrong as Nintendo has not given much info on the new console yet.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Thats impressive being that its their second console. Although im sure alot of that maybe came from the fiasco that was PS3. I had the PS1 and PS2 and Xbox, loved them both to death, but the cost of the PS3 was at launch made the 360 more viable option. Plus most games are on both consoles now, GTA and FF being the main ones. Silent Hill, Metal Gear etc etc Consoles have very few console only titles, guess only Nintendo still do, though i don't like their games.

I will still buy the new Xbox as im a creature of habit, but with the PS4, as long as Sony dont take their consumers for granted (which i think they did with the PS3 as they had a huge market share with the PS2) they will pick up alot of their lost market shares. WiiU i think is doomed, especially after the Wii, most see it as a gimmick machine and unfortunately i feel this will reflect on the WiiU. Although i could be wrong as Nintendo has not given much info on the new console yet.

I think the WiiU is a doomed machine, but not for the reason you're thinking. As it's designed right now, it's on par with the 360 and PS3. Microsoft plans on releasing their next console in 3 years. If the WiiU doesn't pick up as a super machine(which I don't really see it doing) right out of the gate, then I don't think it's going to catch up at all. Sony needs to stop jerking around their customers. While the PS3 isn't a bad console, it too long to get over the fact that the major selling feature was Blu-Ray.

 

[BrotherRool]

How have they arrived at their numbers?

They've sold 67 million 360's, compared to 95 million Wii's, and 63 million PS3's. Are they saying 47% of consoles bought this year were 360's?

Well Sony sold 1.9 million PS3's last quarter, compared to 1.3 million 360's (although that was one month less time span than Sony)

What they're actually saying is that this month, of all consoles sold in the US, 47% of them were 360's. That's very far away from

Own a console? Odds are, it's an Xbox, says Microsoft Marketing Officer.

EDIT:

Thats impressive being that its their second console. Although im sure alot of that maybe came from the fiasco that was PS3.

It's actually more to do with PR spin See above, it's pretty fascinating though, this went through 2 major news sources before arriving here and neither of them actually tried to check the numbers

 

[vrbtny]

Yeah, but how many of those have been red-ringed and replaced by warranty/forced to buy a new one? I'm guessing about half.

Nice try, microsoft....

 

[gigastar]

Nope, still dont own an Xbox, have no foreseeable reason to buy one within the next 3 years and have have a awe-inspiringly fairly low opinion of the 360 anyway due to all the hardware malfunctions.

They won't ban Xbox from the US at this point, considering how popular it is.

Yet they banned opium, which was even more popular in its time.

 

[Azuaron]

Own a console? Odds are, it's an Xbox, says Microsoft Marketing Officer.

"Own a console? Odds are, it's a Wii, says Nintendo Marketing Officer."

"Own a console? Odds are, it's a PS3, says Sony Marketing Officer."

"Own a computer? Odds are, it's an iMac, says Apple Marketing Officer."

"Own a..."

You get the idea.

 

[Inkidu]

I've thoroughly enjoyed my 360. I used to have an old model and I fried the graphics processor out of it twice (one red segment). I bought a new one because mine was using the old optical reader and it didn't work sometimes.

No real complaints for many years of great gaming.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Nope, still dont own an Xbox, have no foreseeable reason to buy one within the next 3 years and have have a awe-inspiringly fairly low opinion of the 360 anyway due to all the hardware malfunctions.

I'm with ya there.

It makes me laugh when they say things like these, and I look at my living room and a 360 is nowhere to be found.

Good ole marketing spin for mid-week.

 

[antigodoflife]

I'm honestly seeing vastly different numbers :

Wii = 94m
360 = 66m
PS3 = 64m
(Jan 2012, except PS3 ; March 2012 - Wikipedia)

As you can see the 360 doesn't even reach a third of all consoles sold last generation.

If you're only going to count one country, America, consoles of the last generation are:

Wii = 35m
360 = 25m
PS3 = 15m
(as of 2010 - Wikipedia.)

(Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft need to update their statistics)

Still, after 2 years, that's still not 47% - taking in account the inevitable increase in sales and the total overall world wide.

 

[ASnogarD]

I find this statement ...

' With Xbox on Windows 8 devices, we rapidly accelerate the reach of Xbox entertainment '

... to be very alarming.
Am I wrong in seeing what little PC development we have die as developers will just let PC gamers play Xbox versions on the PC ? Rather than develop / port a specific PC verion ( port ) ?

Think about it ... if the Win8 takes off, and reaches the majority of PC gaming rigs why bother going to all the extra hassle when those guys can play the Xbox version.
MS wins, as all the games will be Xbox games, and not divided between Xbox on a console and Xbox on a PC sales... as well as nab that corner of the market for Xbox.
Publishers win , PC turns into a console , no more complicated multi hardware configuration nightmare of a platform that just refuses to die to cater to.

The only question remains though is what happens when the new Xbox (720?) comes out.

Meh , whatever its not like anything can be done about it in this gaming era.

 

[GonzoGamer]

How have they arrived at their numbers?

They've sold 67 million 360's, compared to 95 million Wii's, and 63 million PS3's. Are they saying 47% of consoles bought this year were 360's?

Well Sony sold 1.9 million PS3's last quarter, compared to 1.3 million 360's (although that was one month less time span than Sony)

What they're actually saying is that this month, of all consoles sold in the US, 47% of them were 360's. That's very far away from

Own a console? Odds are, it's an Xbox, says Microsoft Marketing Officer.

EDIT:

Thats impressive being that its their second console. Although im sure alot of that maybe came from the fiasco that was PS3.

It's actually more to do with PR spin See above, it's pretty fascinating though, this went through 2 major news sources before arriving here and neither of them actually tried to check the numbers

That's what I was thinking too.
The last time I checked the numbers, the 360 & PS3 were pretty far behind in sales for both the Wii and how much the PS2 sold when it was as old.
Maybe they're counting units manufactured without taking into consideration that many 360s were bought (as Tizzy pointed out) to replace broken 360s.

 

[Terminate421]

Nope, still dont own an Xbox, have no foreseeable reason to buy one within the next 3 years and have have a awe-inspiringly fairly low opinion of the 360 anyway due to all the hardware malfunctions.

They won't ban Xbox from the US at this point, considering how popular it is.

Yet they banned opium, which was even more popular in its time.

I don't care if you have a negative opinion about the xbox. But your example was pretty fucking poor.

Opium is harmful to human health. Therefore it has a relativly reasonable excuse to be banned. This is a product that has quite a bit of influence in our current market.

1. Despite this thread being about the Xbox...don't post it if you don't have it, let alone like it or want it. Thats like me going to a Burger king and shouting "Everyone go to the Chick-fil-a across the street!"

2. Loss of the Xbox360 will have traumatic results to the market. And before you say "Oh you could just switch to PC games or PS3 games". Fuck that. The Xbox is a great system that allows many media functions for a small fee. Which I am happy to pay.

3. Hardware malfunctions? Thats practically gone now. Lets ignore the fact that they've addressed the issue as best as any company could have handled it for the past 5 years.

 

[BrotherRool]

That's what I was thinking too.
The last time I checked the numbers, the 360 & PS3 were pretty far behind in sales for both the Wii and how much the PS2 sold when it was as old.
Maybe they're counting units manufactured without taking into consideration that many 360s were bought (as Tizzy pointed out) to replace broken 360s.

I'm pretty sure the 67 million number includes manufactured units. Nah I got to the bottom of this, there are a total of 220 million current gen consoles worldwide (including broken ones), of which 67 million are 360's, which is less than 33%

It turns out the 47% is in sales this month in the US. Microsoft are pretty good with spin, there was an article on the Escapist last year saying that MS had sold 10 million 360's more than the PS3 but it turned out they were comparing December statistics for 360's with September statistics for the PS3. The gap is still 4 million which it's been ever since the 360 was released a year earlier.

I'm not particularly surprised the Escapist didn't catch onto it, because they were quoting two trusted news sources, I'm surprised the original two news sources didn't stop and think that considering there's still 30 million more Wii's than 360's it couldn't possibly be true that Microsoft has 47% of the total console market