This article is more than 1 year old

Xbox 360 nears 25m global sales mark

Wii still streets ahead, though

The Xbox 360’s global installed base will have overtaken that of its predecessor by the end of the month, a Microsoft executive has forecast.

Mindy Mount, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, said in New York last week that the total number of Xbox 360s in use globally will reach 25m before December.

Microsoft shipped over 24m Xbox units by the time it discontinued the console in 2006. As of 30 September 2008, it had shipped 22m 360s worldwide.

That's well ahead of the 16.8m PlayStation 3s Sony has shipped up to the end of September this year. But both consoles have some way to go before they overtake the Wii. Nintendo had shipped 34.4m consoles by the end of September.

Despite the global economic slowdown, Mount was confident that the videogame industry will weather the storm.

“Certainly consumers are pulling in their purse strings a little bit,” she said. “In hard times, people want entertainment more than ever before.”

Microsoft’s September round of price cuts have helped to shift more Xbox 360s, and Mount claimed that its European console sales rose by 62 per cent month-over-month as a result.

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like