Microsoft Xbox 360 Sales Fall 2.3pct As 'Halo Effect' Fizzles Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Microsoft Xbox 360 Sales Fall 2.3% As 'Halo Effect' Fizzles Posted by XanTium | January 25 15:12 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From informationweek.com: [QUOTE] Microsoft sold fewer Xbox 360 video game consoles during the lucrative holiday shopping season than it did the previous year -- despite September's launch of the blockbuster Xbox 360 title Halo 3. Microsoft shipped 4.3 million Xbox 360 systems in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with 4.4 million systems during the same period in 2006-- a decline of 2.3%. Halo 3 -- a first-person shooter that runs exclusively on the Xbox 360 -- debuted in late September, just before the start of Microsoft's crucial second fiscal quarter. The quarter covers sales made during the key Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping periods. [/QUOTE] Full Story: informationweek.com

[kermit007]

A story about attach rate being higher, and now a story about decreased sales? Call me The Devil's Advocate here but...

[R-Dawggy Dawg]

X-S sure is strugglin for some real news......

[rooter75]

I love how they talk consoles sold and then discuss shipped units for the period. All I can say is that the picture around where i live was night and day difference from holiday season 2006 where xboxes were in surplus and microsoft flooded the market to hit their units shipped goals, to this year where every Bestbuy, Walmart, Circut city and Target that i stopped at (several times during December) was all but sold out with only arcades being available at a few locations. Again this is only my experience from holiday to holiday.

[rooter75]

how long does the edit button last hehehe

Edit: anyway VG chartz shows 3,218,947 360 consoles sold from 10/01/06 to 12/31/06 and 3,946,104 360's sold between 10/7/07 and 12/30/07 and if you stretch it back to included September's numbers well it is even more lopsided for this year. Numbers from 9/03/06 to 12/31/06 = 3,581,104 sold and between 9/02/07 and 12/30/07 = 4,880,285 sold. I know it is VG Chartz and not npd numbers but go figure.

[Swahili]

This is what happens if you stuff the channel. . .

This post has been edited by Swahili: Jan 26 2008, 01:20 AM

[HotKnife420]

With over 50 more games than last year, and $100 cheaper, you would think it'd sell significantly more. Still, 2.3 percent is nothing (yes, I know the dollar amount is substantial to *us*), especially considering the huge dissapointment of Halo 3 (both the game, and Bungie's admittance of 'less than 720p'), and MS' RROD fiasco.

I'd say they're damn lucky they didn't fall by 2.4%.

[aeroforce325]

doesnt suprise me one bit. that's what a hype machine type of game does. it'll sell well and help move some consoles, but when everyone else who didnt go for it hear and realize what type of game it actually is then the sales decline on consoles sold. same thing happened with Halo 2. sure record breaking pre-orders and everything, but where it did get Microsoft a few months later?? not very far.

[djtonic]

Everyone is still upset about halo 3 and this report is adding fuel to that fire....Get over it. Next big release will move consoles again and we can run a new report when that hype ends.

Many of you halo snobs are nerdier than the star wars fanatics!

Halo...all of them, I think are great games! You bought the game after 100's of screenshots, multiple game play movies, beta testing, magazine articles, ezine reports and then call it halo 2.5 and complain all the time about your dissapointment.

~DJ~

[aeroforce325]

see now this is where i must say i wasnt disappointed with halo 3, cause i never bought halo 3. it's best to just leave hype machine type games like that alone, just cause maybe a quarter or so of buyers of the game do end up disappointed for w/e reasons. that's a given.

now enough about that. as for your opinion on all of the halos being great games??? ok....sure it's an opinion. i respect that, but with Bungie hopping into the picture and commenting about halo 2 in negative ways.....i honestly dont see how opinions stand up when the developer goes and pretty much tells us everything we pretty much figured out on our own prior to them saying anything. i mean you basically have Mr. Ed sitting there and telling you "yeah we layed a pretty big stinking turd in everyones bedrooms, livingrooms, or any other room used for gaming". they basically told everyone that just about every aspect of that game could've been exponentially times better. and yeah you can argue the multiplayer was good....and i'll ask "was this before or after the multiplayer map pack?". there's the reason it got good. a map pack they used to make it better. anything else??? hm let's see.....XBL downloads for the game perhaps? yeah i think so.

anyways. i never owned any of the halo games. i played them sure. i played halo combat evolved all the way through and found no need to go back to it. it was a good game at best. not the very best, or best, or excellent....just simply good. tried halo 2 at a friends out of curiosity since it was pretty much sitting there and i wondered if i'd be able to get into it. i played for maybe 5 minutes and that was it. didnt see no point in continuing. halo 3......unfortunately the same story pretty much.

i dont know. i guess i'm just not seeing what everyone else is seeing. that or i'm not blinding myself to obvious faults with the game whether or not i encountered them with my brief experience with it or through hearing on a site of some kind via their forum.

[g8crapachino]

Just another news outlet putting a negative spin on otherwise un-interesting story. It's a well known fact that most of the profits are made in software sales, not hardware. Halo 3 was the fastest and biggest selling video game in history and scored huge profits for Microsoft, so what exactly did it fail at? People who already own a 360 aren't all going to buy another console because of Halo so to expect there to be more hardware sales then last year is unrealistic. It's inevitable that hardware sales may dip after being on the market for 2 years already. They still sold 4.3 Million consoles so for anyone to say it "Fizzled" is just a complete exaggeration.,

This post has been edited by g8crapachino: Jan 26 2008, 06:59 AM

[HotKnife420]

I really wasn't trying to start a Halo bashing session. When I spoke of how there's plenty of reviews stating it "doesn't live up to the hype", etc. it was to state that sales hadn't declined much as a result of both that and the RRoD fiasco. They've been increadibly consistant, though, so 2.3% less than last year isn't bad when you're still selling millions, monthly.

[0794]

Many of you halo snobs are nerdier than the star wars fanatics!

Halo...all of them, I think are great games! You bought the game after 100's of screenshots, multiple game play movies, beta testing, magazine articles, ezine reports and then call it halo 2.5 and complain all the time about your disappointment.

~DJ~

agreed, but some people find it's cool sometimes to "go against the flow" and bash whatever is on top...go figure...


anyways, sales are still strong even though this article tries to put a negative spin on selling over 4 million consoles during a quarter. also, it is not a realistic comparison in a product's time line to compare quarters after being out for a few years, regardless of releases that "enhance" a product... ie new games

[irnchriz]

Surely halo sales have not fizzled out but it has hit a saturation point?

I can only imagine that you would describe something as fizzling out if it sold 1,000 units when you thought it could hit a million but for it to have sold over 8 million copies it must have hit its target figure?

[aeroforce325]

Surely halo sales have not fizzled out but it has hit a saturation point?

I can only imagine that you would describe something as fizzling out if it sold 1,000 units when you thought it could hit a million but for it to have sold over 8 million copies it must have hit its target figure?

it's not about how Halo 3 sold individually. it's about the combined sales of console and game together. the game helped sell consoles, but it didnt help at all in pushing consoles sales further than they were the previous year. i'm sure microsoft went into it expecting to at least sell perhaps a couple hundred thousand more consoles with the game...maybe more, but apparantly not. the new console sold attach rate per game sold is what fizzled, and now afterwards the attach rate of a new console sold along with a sold game is dropping.

anyways it's like i said in my first response.....it doesnt suprise me one bit....Halo 3 was being hyped just like Halo 2, and after the mess Halo 2 was people were right to be a bit weary of buying into it right away. and on top of that we all got to remember it was the holiday season. kids mentioned wanting a xbox 360 along with Halo 3 to their parents, parents get them. or kids mentioned only a xbox 360 and the parents went and got it and got talked into buying Halo 3 to go with it by a GS/EB or other game store employee.