Game Consoles, Software Have Happy Thanksgiving

Thanks to Reuters for their report rounding up the sales figures reported for Thanksgiving by the major console makers. Nintendo announced "...it sold more than 500,000 units of its GameCube console during Thanksgiving week, roughly twice what it sold in the entire month of October", and Sony indicated "...the PS2 sold more than 1 million units in November, with sales of its $199 online-enabled Combo Pack doubling from October." Finally, Microsoft "...said year-over-year hardware sales for its second-place Xbox were up 7 percent during Thanksgiving week", with Halo sales peaking 435 percent after its price cut. Reuters also has a piece talking to software publishers, in which they're cautiously optimistic over "relatively strong" game sales.

Comments

Re:Gamecube?

[MBCook]

Well, combined that's really not saying much. While we're always hearing about how the PS2 has X times as many units as the 'Cube (or so forth) the fact is that all three together are soundly TROUNCED by the sales number of the GBA, so that's nothing new. This has been true for a very long time.

It goes to prove,a cheap console with good games will sell very well, even if they aren't 3D or FPSes. The fact that it's portable adds a lot, but I would own a GBA even if it wasn't, because the games are just that good.

If we're talking total units sold, then tinking about it, that MUST be combined. While Nintendo is ahead of Microsoft (I think), the PS2 has WAY more units than either of those two, so it would have to be a combination of the 'Cube and GBA, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense.

But if we are talking units sold during that time frame, it's entirely possible that the 'Cube outsold the other two systems (not including the GBA). It's cheaper, and many people already have PS2s (which would otherwise outsell).

So in conclusion, go Nintendo! (I suppose).

A note on the numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft said year-over-year hardware sales for its second-place Xbox were up 7 percent during Thanksgiving week.

Which means how many?

"We think we're still pretty much on plan to make our numbers for the year," Aaron Greenberg, a business manager for Xbox at Microsoft, told Reuters.

So is that a 200 or a 300 million dollar loss? I guess it means an "improvement" of 7% year-on-year?

Greenberg also said Microsoft had seen a 435 percent rise in week-over-week sales of "Halo," the best-selling Xbox game ever, after Microsoft cut the title's price to $29.99 from $49.99.

Again, which means how many? Halo had basically reached the end of its $50 run and sales were probably very low, so in absolute terms a 435% increase is probably meaningless.

Re:Halo sales

[imitier]

Well, since they didn't tell you how many units of the game were actually sold, a 435% increase isn't necessarily all that impressive. If (to make up a number) 100 people a month were buying Halo over the last few months at it $49.99 price (because, as you suggest, almost everyone with an XBox owns it), then the 435% increase only means sales went up to 435 for the time period they're looking at (note: numbers and time periods totally made up.) In fact, given that they didn't give an actual sales number, but just gave a percent, I have a feeling that the actual number of Halo sales wasn't that large. The price cut to $30 wasn't that impressive anyway, since it was pretty easy to get the game for $40 or less before the price cut.

Playstation Sales

[77Punker]

Why do PS2's still sell so big? I just don't get it. Both X-Box and Gamecube boast more powerful hardware than the PS2. The Gamecube costs less, has 4 control ports, and gets lots of good exclusive games from Nintendo. The X-Box has those controller ports, a hard drive, Halo, and just about every PS2 game has an X-Box version. There's just no reason to the madness!

Re:XBox Figures...

[OneFix]

I meant that the PeeCee is a "one-hit wonder" in respects to the top 10 list...

It's not an exact science...but the truth is, your argument supports my theory...there ARE more consoles out there, which means that this list reflects reality to an extent. If the list were dominated by 1 console, then it may be biased...but the list looks to be a pretty good sampling of what ppl are playing and as such, it should also give us a good sampling of just what systems they are playing them on...

Gamecube sales

[M.C. Hampster]

I'm sure the huge number of sales for the GC on Black Friday weekend had to do with the Walmart deal of $79 for a Gamecube, which came with the Zelda collection. I already own a Gamecube and was feeling like I needed to get another one. Why? I don't even know.