Microsoft Reports Huge Sales for Xbox 360 on Black Friday
Nearly 1 Million Xbox 360s Sold Last Week
Not long after the dust had settled following yet another record-breaking Black Friday, major video game firm Nintendo came out to boast that it had sold approximately half a million Nintendo Wii consoles in a single day. Now, Microsoft is firing back with its own statistics and the numbers are considerably more impressive.
According to Nintendo, it sold approximately 500,000 Nintendo Wiis this past Black Friday. For many in the video game industry, that was a pretty staggering total given the Wii's steady decline in popularity since an absolutely insane holiday bonanza in 2006, when the console was the "must-buy" toy in the lead-up to Santa’s arrival. In the five years since, Nintendo has struggled to keep up interest in its system as the already outdated Wii technology (which lacks high-definition video) ages.
Still, the recent release of the long-awaited game Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword no doubt helped sell a few hundred thousand Wiis last week.
So, how did Nintendo's main rival in the video game market, Microsoft, fare? Pretty well, it appears. The Redmond-based firm, better known for its operating systems than video game consoles, reported it had sold 800,000 units of its Xbox 360 console on Black Friday alone, and nearly reached 1 million sales over the course of the entire week.
Beyond the console itself, Microsoft said it sold approximately 750,000 units of the Kinect motion sensor peripheral for the Xbox 360. There's no doubt that the Kinect, which allows Xbox 360 owners to engage in hands-free gaming, played a huge part in Microsoft's big Black Friday.
Also a major boost: the fact that Microsoft knocked about $200 off its Xbox 360/Kinect bundle and $50 off the Kinect in standalone form.
After releasing its Black Friday sales figures, Microsoft went on to reveal that new features will soon be coming to the Xbox 360's online platform, Xbox Live. These features include the release of custom entertainment applications and a slew of new television channels.
We don't yet know how Sony's PlayStation 3 fared this past Black Friday.
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