NPD: Numbers, Profits and Dummies

• NPD reported that in the US, Xbox 360 was the #1 console for the month; outselling PS3 5:1
  
• Xbox 360 sales built upon its growth from last month, showing a 50 percent increase for the month of September selling an average of 105,600 consoles per week. Total sales were more than 528,000 Xbox 360 consoles sold, compared to 501,000 for Wii and 119,000 for PS3.
  
• PS3 sales posted an average weekly decline of 27 percent.
  
• Xbox 360 software revenue at retail outsold PS3’s software portfolio 8:1 and Wii’s 4:1, selling 3 times more than both platforms combined.
  
• For the month of September according to NPD, Xbox 360 software represented 74 percent of total software sales for the next generation market compared to 17 percent for Wii and 9 percent for PS3. Even without the sales of “Halo 3” the Xbox 360 portfolio outsold the PS3 portfolio 2:1.
  
• Additionally, Xbox 360 is home to the best-selling games with the top-rated next-generation titles. According to the world-wide authority in entertainment reviews, Metacritic, Xbox 360 has 80 titles with a Metacritic review score of 80 or higher compared to just 31 for PS3 and 11 for Wii.
  
• Newly released title “The Orange Box” (Valve) and the highly anticipated title “Mass Effect” (Microsoft Game Studios) have both generated rankings of 97 and higher according to Metacritic. And not to forget “BioShock” (2KGames) which remains one of the year’s highest rated games.

I thought I should post this, a snippet I took from Major Nelson's site displaying the NPD numbers on Xbox 360 hardware and software sales during September 2007. It turns out the Xbox 360 is outselling the Wii, which was leading console sales so far. Now alot of people responded to this by saying Microsoft was trying to brag about how much money it made and that they only made a big deal about it on the month of September because they weren't doing well during the past months. Well frankly I don't know how to put this intellectually. Microsoft is happy because its console is selling better than the Wii, so it's showing everyone how the Xbox 360 is selling better than the Wii... because it's happy. Why wouldn't Microsoft want to make a big deal about it? The Xbox 360 has been lacking buyers for a while now and suddenly with all these great games coming out for the platform, people are buying more Xbox 360s. The fact is, people like to give Microsoft a hard time because it's Microsoft. It's successful, it does a good job at what it does and people just want to bag on it. The Three Red Quadrants is a problem, I know and maybe the Xbox 360 is the least reliable console, but that's a hardware failure. A fully functioning Xbox 360 is by far the best console for the hardcore gamer, and Microsoft is doing what it can to fix the problem. I say these people start learning to appreciate Microsoft for the customer-supportive company it is and realize that no one at Microsoft is a god that is perfect and can fix anything with a snap of their fingers. We all make mistakes, and Microsoft's mistakes aren't so terrible that should be held against them to this extreme. Atleast the Three Red Quadrants aren't costing people money. Microsoft is repairing all affected consoles for free. All you have to do is hope you don't die from being apart from your Xbox 360 for a month.

Take care and have fun gaming,

-ProjektWikked