Microsoft ships 1m Xbox consoles

Responding at last to Nintendo's almost weekly press releases detailing GameCube's shipments into the US, Microsoft yesterday said it had shipped more than one million Xbox consoles in North America.

Microsoft expects to ship 1-1.5 million units by the end of the year, so it's clearly on course to achieve that goal. Nintendo now expects to ship 1.3 million GameCubes in the same period. GameCube launched in the US less than a week after Xbox's 15 November debut. Its Japanese debut took place in September.

Microsoft once again claimed that Xbox games have been selling incredibly well, though as we reported last week, that's almost certainly a product of the large number of titles being bundled with the console by retailers.

The battle between the two companies is rapidly turning from a debate on technology to a fight over numbers.

Nintendo quickly followed Microsoft's press release with one of its own, this time noting the company's decision to raise the number of GameCube it expects to have sold worldwide by next April from four million units to 4.5 million, an increase of 12.5 per cent. ®

Related Stories

How to set a record for the number of games sold per console
Nintendo GameCube sales on target to beat initial forecast