Skip navigation

Xbox 360 Owned Black Friday Weekend, Microsoft Says

On the heels of Nintendo’s announcement about selling 400,000 Wii U video game consoles in the device’s first week of availability, Microsoft made a blockbuster announcement of its own. It sold 750,000 Xbox 360 consoles over the Black Friday weekend, demolishing the Wii U number.

“Over the holiday weekend, Xbox 360 sold more than 750,000 consoles in the United States alone, exceeding internal forecasts,” Microsoft’s Larry Hryb wrote in his Major Nelson blog. That number is almost double the 400,000 Wii U units that Nintendo needed a week to sell, and Nintendo claims that its console was essentially sold out. (See "Nintendo Wii U Sells Out in First Week with More Than 400,000 Units Sold" for more information.)

How did a seven-year-old console—allegedly on its deathbed—just destroy a brand-new, next-generation Nintendo console in the market?

Hryb added that Xbox LIVE Gold Subscription sales increased more than 50 percent compared with last year’s Black Friday week, and that more than 14 million people participated in Xbox LIVE across the world, “racking up more than 72 million hours of use in just one day.” Use of entertainment apps on the console jumped 43 percent when compared with last year in the United States alone, he claimed.

People are using the heck out of their Xbox 360s. And more and more people are buying into this platform.

The Xbox 360 has been the best-selling console in the United States all year, but many had expected Nintendo to regain the crown with the release of the Wii U, which is the first of the next-generation consoles. But the Xbox 360’s resiliency is amazing: Back in October, Microsoft sold 270,000 units for the month. Its Black Friday weekend numbers were three times as high.

Separately, a Microsoft representative also noted that sales of Halo 4 were “impressive” over the holiday weekend and also exceeded expectations. But no firm numbers were given to support those claims. (For more about Halo 4, check out "Halo 4 to Debut November 6.")

Hide comments

Comments

  • Allowed HTML tags: <em> <strong> <blockquote> <br> <p>

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Publish