"The report also highlights that just this past December, Sony's PS3 managed to surpass the number of Xbox 360s shipped worldwide (about 77 million vs. 76 million), despite the PS3 launching a year later."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-01-09-idc-game-consoles-discs-to-remain-revenue-mainstays-for-years-to-come

Just in case someone feels the itch to pull the 'sold vs shipped' card, it's not a big factor for platforms that have been out for years.

I`m pulling that card, units shipped does not equate to units sold. The thread title is a blatnat untruth! This is an outrage!

Serves Xbox right for producing Halo and getting DLC first in the new Call of Duty games. Get a clue fanboys4life Assassins Creed III looks great on all the consoles. You greeners have had how many AAA first party titles for the past three E3s? My big black PS3 Epeen>yours: time to put your soiled Xboxers in the Washer Playstation4Life

...

Seriously, though. This makes the Ps3 a better console, doesn't it? Because everyone wants it, and more people have it, it must be the better console with the better service. Since otherwise it wouldn't have sold so much against the direct competition?

...

What? I've heard it on the internet, so it must be true. For over five years now. Every time I get near a gaming site. And if the internet says something, it must be representative of everyone in the whole world. It is law. 

So clearly now is the time to sell your xbosk.

God bless Sony!

My PS3 has been going strong for 5 years.  Number of break/fixes = 0

Better made hardware should sell more than shabbier hardware.

That's why there are so many of those Oppo blu-ray players in everyone's house amirite?  Anyway I've had more problems with my PS3s than I have had with any of my 360s, but that's just me...

Right after MaxKudos decided to return :lol

They've been somewhat on track to do this for a while now but the Kinect spike kept the 360 sales just out of reach for a bit. There's no denying that the PS3 currently has a superior library of first party titles and anybody who is thinking of buying a new system this late in the cycle would probably take that into acount when deciding between the 360 and PS3. I'm curious if this'll lead to price drops on the 360 (my guess is not right away)

To be fair though, the 360 never really did catch on in Asia the way the PS3 did right? I mean I would still have to guess that in the States the 360 spanked the PS3 in user base?

Doesn't Japan generally shun foreign made consoles historically? The Wii and PS3 get support in Japan since they are made by Japanese companies, but foreign company consoles tend to fail in Japan. Even if the 360 was a moderate success in Japan, it still probably never got the mainstream acceptance of home grown Japanese consoles.

Japan is a crucial gaming market, I would be shocked if the numbers between 360 and PS3 are even close over there. I would guess 360 beat PS3 in pretty much every market EXCEPT over in Asia, namely Japan...

The 360 is only really big in the US. The PS3 outsells it both in Europe and Japan. So every month it gradually ate away at the 10 million 1 year headstart. Unless M$ can get better sales in Europe (Japan is a lost cause) with the 720, the PS4 will outsell it.

all i could find in a quick google search on wiki and it's not rightly up to date, but the figures are 5-7 million removed from current sales, so it can't be too far off:

 

Worldwide sales figures

Overall, the Wii would outsell its competitors worldwide. However, Wii sales considerably fell in 2012. To this day, the PS3 and xbox 360 have been catching up. Nevertheless, the Wii has still outsold its rivals by about 30 million units.

1. Wii – 97.18 million as of 30 September 2012[8]
2. PlayStation 3 – 70.2 million as of 30 September 2012[55][56]
3. Xbox 360 – 70.0 million as of 30 September 2012[57]

Japan sales figures

1. Wii – 11,534,590 as of 1 April 2011[58]
2. PlayStation 3 – 6,341,950 as of 1 April 2011[58]
3. Xbox 360 – 1,448,665 as of 1 April 2011[58]

Europe sales figures

1. Wii – 24.9 million as of December 2010[59]
2. PlayStation 3 – 19.7 million as of December 2010[59]
3. Xbox 360 – 13.7 million as of December 2010[59]

United States sales figures

1. Wii – 30 million as of 10 August 2010[60]
2. Xbox 360 – 18.7 million as of 31 December 2009[61]
3. PlayStation 3 - nearly 12 million as of 14 April 2010[62]

 

it's a difference of several million in japan. the majority of the 70+ million comes from every other market combined. the 5-7 million units difference is +360 in US and +PS3 in japan, so i guess it swings both ways.

Wonder if the numbers will be even between all three of the hardware makers in the coming generation. Always nice to see some fierce competition to drive everyone to the limits of their software development capabilities.

odh wrote:

Japan is a crucial gaming market, I would be shocked if the numbers between 360 and PS3 are even close over there.

Here's a Garaph.info chart made from Media Create data:



The 360's launch year is hidden by the black bar on bottom.

Dub_Z wrote:

it's a difference of several million in japan. the majority of the 70+ million comes from every other market combined. the 5-7 million units difference is +360 in US and +PS3 in japan, so i guess it swings both ways.

Not unlike the Genesis in the US and SNES in Japan.  Except the winner gets 2nd. :p

The 360's big strength is Xbox Live, and I think only Americans and Britons really care about Live. I don't think MS really supports Live very well in non-English-speaking markets.

crispy4001 wrote:

Just in case someone feels the itch to pull the 'sold vs shipped' card, it's not a big factor for platforms that have been out for years.

You probably could have just avoided posting this altogether, then.

Micro$oft are probably not worried...Gears of war judgement is out in just 2 months. Once again, its units shipped, not sold.

At another forum I frequent, a lot of people were celebrating this but I have to say I'm not impressed. Sony, the overwhelming market leader from about 1997 to 2006 needed six years just to finish second ahead of MS (a company that has a console which is completely ignored in Japan) this time around. Regardless, both have sold well which is great. I'm not sure either of the successor consoles will even come close to doing as well. Garbage economy coupled with more than likely very high price tags is going to lead to some disastrous sales early on. The Wii U is off to a slow start at $350, imagine how bad the next Xbox and PS4 will sell as both will almost certainly launch at $400+.

The 360 has a niche appeal in Japan. I mean, it's Cave's platform of choice, and shooters are still huge in Japan.

Coarse_Limely wrote:

Wonder if the numbers will be even between all three of the hardware makers in the coming generation. Always nice to see some fierce competition to drive everyone to the limits of their software development capabilities.

Except what really happened was a successful propaganda push from MS, for sd-television resolutions, PC games with low detail and high amounts of drm, exclusives through paying external companies to drop half the market, etc. To the point where Sony (the only competitor in the same segment) and their marketing department guys (who are particularly braindead) have been shredding their own IPs and internal studios, systematically, in order to compete more fiercely in the same niche-market Microsoft dominates. With a more expensive console..

So when the exclusives and interesting games on the ps3 finally dry out completely - what we end up with really is two Microsoft consoles, that play the same games with the same graphics.

In the meantime, the ps3 exclusives have been selling well with the new bundles and the "essentials" label, apparently. Heard from several stores that that was what happens. They sell the cheaper ps3s to people who deliberately pick up things like inFamous, Singstar, SotC/Sly collections, that sort of thing.

Meaning that what is maintaining the sales of the ps3 over time is a toss-up between:

1. Exclusives that aren't advertised for, shipped in ugly cheap-o boxes... that still make the ps3 somewhat worthy to own..

or 2. Multiplatform games that also are available (and better advertised) on other, cheaper, platforms.

Hmmm....

 

Old School Gamer wrote:The 360 is only really big in the US. The PS3 outsells it both in Europe and Japan. So every month it gradually ate away at the 10 million 1 year headstart. Unless M$ can get better sales in Europe (Japan is a lost cause) with the 720, the PS4 will outsell it.

This doesn't really make any sense though if you take a minute to unpack it.  What is the largest selling ip of the generation?  Call of Duty.  What gaming trend doesn't CoD repesent?  Online fps pvp.  What console builds all its advantages off of that trend?  The 360.  What market is the 360 most successful in?  The US.  The 360's dominance in the US is of my mind a sign of things to come for the international market.  You can't make like a Louis Vuitton European game console or something.  The industry moves towards standards.  Japan is a tiny market compared to everywhere else, and its actually not the best market for consoles in general.

If it doesn't make any sense Meta, then how did it happen?  Magical fairies willed it?

TheLastMoogle wrote:

crispy4001 wrote:

Just in case someone feels the itch to pull the 'sold vs shipped' card, it's not a big factor for platforms that have been out for years.

You probably could have just avoided posting this altogether, then.

Probably.  My intent was to say my piece and not debate it.  If someone really wanted to claim that Sony is overstuffing the retail channel to get ahead and hasn't sold more to consumers, that's their own perrogative.

formergcfan wrote:

Garbage economy coupled with more than likely very high price tags is going to lead to some disastrous sales early on. The Wii U is off to a slow start at $350, imagine how bad the next Xbox and PS4 will sell as both will almost certainly launch at $400+.

Likely better than the WiiU has in their first two months.

I anticipate a slump following the launch window though.  A lot more people are going to want to hold to what they have this generation for longer.  Publishers are also going to want to milk this gen for all it has given the risk of next-gen development.  I think the 360 and PS3 together may outlive the PS2's end consequently.  That would bode well for the WiiU and Vita continuing where they'll leave off ... if more developers actually cared to put their games on them in the first place.

The PS4 and 720 will both have good launches (Nov and Dec) but January and beyond they'll start to struggle. People have to remember that sales for the 360 didn't actually pick up in America until Kinect came out. The PS3 didn't sell well worldwide until the Slim was released. The first 2 years are going to be rough for those $400-$500+ new consoles. There's going to be added competition from the Steambox whenever that is released, a possible Wii U price drop, 360 or PS3 possible hitting below $149. It's going to be a very crowded field in 2014.

METAgamer468 wrote:

Old School Gamer wrote:The 360 is only really big in the US. The PS3 outsells it both in Europe and Japan. So every month it gradually ate away at the 10 million 1 year headstart. Unless M$ can get better sales in Europe (Japan is a lost cause) with the 720, the PS4 will outsell it.

This doesn't really make any sense though if you take a minute to unpack it.  What is the largest selling ip of the generation?  Call of Duty.  What gaming trend doesn't CoD repesent?  Online fps pvp.  What console builds all its advantages off of that trend?  The 360... The 360's dominance in the US is of my mind a sign of things to come for the international market.

I think the subscription barrier is a huge problem for them outside of the US, where they don't have a lead and certainly not a definitive one.  The further Sony pulls away in a territory the less Xbox Live matters there as a selling point for consoles.  And the more the subscription wieghs negatively into purchase decisions [ie: 'If most of my friends have PS3s, why should I buy a 360 and pay for XBL?'].

Next-gen, Microsoft needs to get ahead from the get go to get the CoD bump (or whatever its equivalent will be).  The 360's year head start, ridiculous PS3 launch pricing and PSN's early troubles were a golden window of oppertunity for them.   Barring any major Sony screw ups, they won't have that advantage this time around.

Their big move has to be getting their core base to leave this gen behind at a quicker pace than Sony's.  That means big guns at launch, presenting any mass market gimmick added to the 720 as a secondary focus, and utilizing an installment pricing plan that makes sense.  If they can do all that, I think in the US they'll keep the PS4 at bay and keep XBL's current relevancy.

Europe's a harder case.  Not sure how they'll solve that one.  Maybe convince a few 3rd party Western devs to make them some exclusives.

US tends to be slow in migrating to the sucessor console. It's going to be interesting to see how M$ is going to have new buyers pick up a 720 over a 360. They had it easy with the 360 since M$ basically discontinued the original Xbox due to their problems with Nvidia. The 720's biggest competition in the US is actually going to be the 360 for the first 2-3 years.

Sony still fails in the biggest gaming market, (US of A).  Xbox owns a 2 to 1 console advantage and the AAA titles are all outselling on Xbox by a 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 margin.  Halo was number 3 selling game of last year.  No sony exclusive made the list.  barnone Xbox dominates the #1 market US of A.  Japan is outdated and insignificant.  Clear winner is Xbox this generation and will probably next gen with the installed user base and the best online service of xbox live.