Apparently Nintendo wasn’t the only one raking in the cash this past Black Friday: Microsoft today bragged that they sold over 960,000 Xbox 360 units and over 750,000 Kinect peripherals over the course of the week leading up to and including Black Friday, though they noted that these sales figures don’t include any sales the system may have generated over the following Cyber Monday.
The 360 has been the top selling console for most of 2011, and many pundits questioned Microsoft’s ability to keep that streak going without a holiday season price-cut in order to keep parity with the recent price drops that Nintendo and Sony have applied to their hardware. Obviously, the lack of a price-cut hasn’t hurt the system’s popularity in the slightest, as Microsoft is touting that this year’s Black Friday take created “the biggest week of sales in Xbox history.” On the software front, Microsoft also maintains a strong lead over the competition, with 360 versions of holiday heavy hitters like Call of Duty and Battlefield managing to move millions of copies, while 360 exclusives (yes, they’re rare, but hey actually still exist,) like Gears of War 3 and Halo Anniversary managing to do healthy business as well.
With the 360 doing gang-buster sales this year, one has to wonder if there’s any truth to the rumor that Microsoft is rushing development on the Next Xbox system in order to launch during the 2012 holiday season; with their current 6 year-old hardware still managing to dominate sales charts, it seems like, at least from a business point of view, that Microsoft would have no reason to change the console industry’s current status quo.
Whatever the future holds, it seems that both Nintendo and Microsoft are content with their earnings this past week, and I’m sure Sony is readying a statement filled with equally boastful numbers as we speak. As someone who spent way too much on video games last week, I can proudly say that I had a hand in contributing to their success, though I am somewhat less proud about how overdrawn my checking account is. Regardless, who needs money when you have a pile of new games that allow you to escape the cold, harsh reality of poverty? Yep, that’s fiscal solvency, American style.
