Microsoft was the first to issue a press release, saying that U.S. Xbox 360 console sales over the Black Friday weekend were on pace to beat previous years. It estimated Black Friday sales were up 25 percent on 2007 numbers and that the Xbox 360 outsold the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one margin.
Of course, analysts are expecting Nintendo to trounce Microsoft in consoles sold. Nintendo doesn’t have a Black Friday report ready yet.
Full text source: The standard
Sony, meanwhile, thumped its chest back at Microsoft. Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing and PlayStation Network at Sony, said in a statement that the company’s U.S. sales are up 90 percent year-to-date and that sales are on track for the company’s fiscal year which ends March 31, 2009.Retailers reported strong sales on Black Friday, but many analysts attributed that to deep discounting. Video game companies have bundled more games with each console, and Microsoft cut its console prices in September, but the industry hasn’t resorted to big discounts. In the game industry, the most expensive new games debut at $60, but there is always the danger that new games won’t sell well and that used games will surge. That isn’t the case right now, evidently.
Gears of War 2 lived up to the hype. I finished it last week and was quite delighted with the sequel to the 2006 original. Microsoft said it sold 2 million copies of that game on its first weekend after the Nov. 7 launch.Microsoft said that Fable II and Lips (a sing-along game) also sold well. And it said that sales of Xbox 360 hardware have been strong worldwide since the company cut prices in September. Among the big titles that should push November U.S. sales of video games are Gears of War 2, EA’s Left For Dead, Sony’s LittleBigPlanet and Resistance 2, Activision Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, THQ’s WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009, and Nintendo’s Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia for the Nintendo DS handheld game player. NPD is expected to publish November game sales results on Dec. 11.
Full text source: The standard
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