Xbox 360 tops U.S. charts in September, rules 2011 sales

By Tom Warren, on 13th Oct 11 9:39 pm with 36 Comments

Xbox 360 'Slim'

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 topped the U.S. sales charts again in September.

Market research company NPD released its latest sales figures on Thursday. Despite a temporary slip in December (due to shortages), Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console has dominated the charts for 15 out of 16 months. The Xbox 360 outsold both the Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 in September with 438,000 units. Microsoft has held onto the top spot each month in 2011 and is expected to remain the top selling console in the U.S. throughout the holiday period. “The popular digital entertainment system is now poised to finish 2011 as the best-selling console,” said Microsoft’s Jeff Meisner in a blog post on Thursday.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console has held more than 40% of the current-generation market share for six months now. Microsoft’s Xbox momentum has been fuelled by the popular launch of its Kinect controller-less console accessory for the Xbox 360 across the world in November. The Kinect sensor is a horizontal bar that sits at the base of your TV. The device has an RGB camera, depth sensor and multi-array microphone which runs proprietary software. Kinect allows for full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition, and voice recognition. Owners will be able to interact with games titles using just their body. Pausing TV and fast forwarding movies can be achieved using a mix of hand movements and voice control.

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming console dominated U.S. charts in 2010. Microsoft revealed at CES in January that the company has sold over 50 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide since launch. Microsoft also has 30 million active Xbox LIVE members and has sold 10 million Kinect sensors in just 60 days on the market.

The software giant opened up its preview program earlier this week for the fall 2011 dashboard update. The November dashboard update will bring Microsoft’s Metro style interface to the Xbox. Microsoft is also preparing to include YouTube and Bing on the Xbox. Bing users will be able to use Kinect’s voice recognition feature to search for movies, music and other content on their consoles. Microsoft is also planning to include some type of Marketplace with applications for Xbox 360. Microsoft will also introduce an Xbox LIVE TV service as part of its dashboard update. The company announced deals with nearly 40 content providers recently.

NPD September highlights:

  • Holding 42 percent share of the overall current-generation console market, Xbox 360 sold 438,000 units in September, maintaining the number-one console spot in the U.S. for 2011. This marks the seventh consecutive month Xbox 360 has had more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share.
  • Total retail spend on the Xbox 360 platform in September (hardware, software and accessories) reached $534 million, the most for any console in the U.S. and two times larger than the nearest competitor.
  • During the month of September, Xbox 360 held six of the top 10 console game titles, including: “Gears of War 3,” “Madden NFL 12,” “Dead Island,” “FIFA Soccer 12,” “NHL 12” and “Deus EX: Human Revolution.”
  • Guest

    Meanwhile Google crushed earnings with 33% revenue growth and 28% profit growth. And MS will probably limp in with 8% revenue and maybe 12% profit growth if they’re lucky, including Xbox.

    Prediction: Google is next pass MS on valuation.

    • Grannyville7989

      Well good for Google, then :)

    • Guest

      MS supposedly has a direct competitor to Google. Perhaps you’ve heard?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3OIDXOI5OEMTX6Z3O5YUBFSISA Diego3336

      So?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3OIDXOI5OEMTX6Z3O5YUBFSISA Diego3336

      This is so like those stupids “Gaga vs Spears vs Perry” comments on YouTube. How old are you? 11? Lol

    • Guest

      Tell that to new engineers coming out of top Universities. Which company do you think they want to work for more, the one growing at 30% with a stock that moves, or the one seeing declining growth and a stock that’s been dead for a decade?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3OIDXOI5OEMTX6Z3O5YUBFSISA Diego3336

      They are probably too busy trolling on the internet to think about it…

    • Grannyville7989

      As a final year computer science student at Cardiff University, I would love to get the opportunity to work at Microsoft. I find them very exciting with what they’re going with Windows on a tablet, as well as their phone OS and all of their cloud integration they’re putting in their products. But that’s from my point of view, I’m sure there are plenty of people who find Microsoft very dull and would jump in a heartbeat to work for Google.

      Each to their own :)

    • Anonymous

      Judging by a recent Fortune article MS is a better work perspective than both Google and Apple. So…

    • Sarah_gilbert

      Declining Growth? Do you know Math? or you are illiterate? 4th grade? Even my son knows Microsoft 4 year old.

    • Guest

      > Sarah

      “Declining Growth?”

      Yes, declining *growth*. Still growing, but the rate of growth is decreasing.

      Let’s hope your son stays in school a few more years and learns English and math better than you apparently did. 

    • Adam

      yep. i picked ms :-) graduated from University of Michigan.

    • Anonymous

      Wasn’t MS net profit last quarter about 6 billion?  That is more than twice Google net profit so you may want to hold off on your claims.  In the meantime, I’m sure there is a bridge you can hide under, as this is an article on the continued success of XBOX, not Google vs Microsoft.

    • Guest

      Maybe they can use the extra money to buyback more stock in hopes of staying ahead of Google for a few months more? I mean, how bad would it look if Apple, IBM, and Google, all passed MS in 2011?

    • Anonymous

      Haha dude, we get it, your a troll.  You bring up stock comparisons on an article about Xbox.  You don’t need to give us any further proof.  You can go back to your bridge now.  Meanwhile, I will still enjoy my Windows 7, xbox, windows phone 7, SkyDrive, Live services, and other MS products no matter what you say about Google stock options.

    • Anonymous

      Market Cap != profits :)

    • Monkey D Black

      dude, STFU and GTFO. what the hell is wrong with you? we all can see that you like google and hate Microsoft. does it make you feel good trolling a microsoft xbox post about who makes more money than the other? at least learn to stay on F***ing point. jeez. this is a gaming post, at least if you’re going to troll, then troll about sony and their ps3, but bringing up another company that has nothing to do with this post is as low as trolling goes.

    • Shiro

      Yes. You forget that Microsoft has cash cows like Windows 7 and MS Office. Google would only dream of cash streams like that…

    • Anonymous

      Meanwhile, any good news involving Microsoft on a Microsoft oriented website causes anti-Microsoft trolls to get worried. They crawl out of the woodwork to make themselves feel better about the disaster that Google+ is.

      http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/google-engineer-calls-google-a-pathetic-afterthought-and-knee-jerk-reaction/4082

      http://gizmodo.com/5849416/not-even-google%252B-knows-what-the-hell-google%252B-is

    • Guest

      40 million users for a new service competing head to head against Facebook is a disaster? What does that make WP7? hehheh.

    • Anonymous

      No, its a disaster when over half the users including the CEO of Google are no longer active users.

    • Adam

      @briguy266:disqus this. 40 million registered users. nobody is sticking around.

    • http://twitter.com/SCGreyWolf GreyWolf

      Unrelated to the article, along with Facebook.

    • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

      I’m a user… but I don’t actually use it.  It’s free so there is no risk in trying.  I just can’t bring myself to keep using it. =/

    • Jinge

      XBox is hardware, not software… 
      And google will probably not overtake MS in valuation, for 1 reason: they are not diversified, all their money comes from ads, and it is kind of risky. Even if they overtake them, the next numeric crisis (which will come, due to overvaluation of companies) will hurt much more google for that reason than MS. MS will keep selling Windows, Office, XBoxes, even Windows Phone or Android phones!!! The day Visual Studio, Biztalk and all business softwares are not being sold anymore is not here yet, and won’t be before a looong time!
      So, better keep getting well profitable and being diversified, than highly profitable and taking revenues from only 1 business which can crash!

    • Guest

      It’s both actually. The hardware is mostly a loss leader.

    • Mark

      “Google is next pass MS on valuation.”

      IBM should get back there first. They’ve done it a couple times already this year. But then yes, Google doing it is virtually inevitable.  MS needs a growth strategy and that was meant to be Bing. But it hasn’t worked out so far.  

    • Sarah_gilbert

      Did you see last year’s results? 12% growth and 23% increase in profits. GOOG is a one trick pony. When the pony gets old, it will die. MSFT is a 4 legged Octopus now. 70billion, 80 billion, then 90 billion. Stupid, you still believe in Wall Street? God bless you.

    • Anonymous

      The GOOG fanboys don’t get it. Diversification is GOOD.

  • Anonymous

    Wonder if MS is planning a price cut to equal Sony’s move. Although these kind of sales don’t promote that idea.

    • Anonymous

      At this point, with each system (including Wii) being around $200-300, I think people are basing their decision on features, games, and ecosystems, rather than initial price tags.  So I doubt MS is in a hurry to provide further price cuts.  Although if they sell the xbox for around 100, ill grab another console just to stream Netflix to my bedroom TV.

    • Anonymous

      Why not just buy a Roku player?

    • GP007

      If Xbox Live TV is like what Roku does then lots of people would rather have one box that does everything instead of filling their  space with lots of different boxes and then switching between the two.  Normal non-tech savy people don’t even like the idea of multiple devices connected to the TV, “What? switch to Video 2?  What’s that?”  and so on.     One box to rule them all, that’s what the 360 is turning into to, and I bet the next system will be even better at playing your media to you.  Hell just add native mkv and subtitle support and you have a huge win right there.

  • Guest

    Gotta hand it to Mattrick. He’s been a breath of fresh air in that division following the disaster that was Bach. Great execution on the console side. Driving down expenses. Finally seeing some integration and coordination between Xbox, MediaRoom, Windows and even WP7.  At least they have one President who is kicking ass.

  • Mike g

    Please eliminate the comment section, I darkens my day.

  • Major Plonquer

    Other than search, Google just copies everything Microsoft does.