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Xbox One FAILS to beat PS3 - yes, PS 3 - week one sales

MS next-gen machine is Britain’s third fastest-selling console

Microsoft’s high profile Xbox One launch did not attract as many British punters as Sony’s PlayStation 3 notched up some six-and-a-half years ago, UK retail sources have revealed.

The next-gen machine went on sale in the UK on Friday 22 November. Sales made by Britain’s biggest High Street and online retailers hit in the region of 150,000 units.

That’s below the PS3’s opening weekend total: 165,000, according to official 2007 figures from GfK Chart-Track, a company which tallies console hardware and software purchases made through UK retail channels.

The PS3 went on sale in the UK on 23 March 2007. Sony had originally planned to release the console in November 2006, but delayed the console’s European and Australian debut in September that year on fears it would not have enough hardware to go around in Japan and North America.

Britain’s fastest selling console remains Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP). Over the weekend immediately following its 2 September 2005 UK debut, some 185,000 buyers acquired the handheld.

Sony’s own next-generation console, the PS4, goes on sale in the UK this coming Friday. It went on sale in North America on 15 November.

Microsoft needn’t worry about failing to beat the PS3’s opening sales tally. Britain, like North America, favoured the Xbox 360 over the the PS3 overall, and seems likely to do so when it comes to the successors to those machines. The PSP’s initial peak has never been repeated.

Mind you, Nintendo’s Wii, launched here in November 2006, has cumulatively outsold the lot of them.

As it stands, the Xbox One accounted for two-thirds of all consoles snapped up this past weekend, handheld and living room machines alike.

Both Sony and Microsoft have claimed more than a million next-gen consoles shipped: both machines have demonstrated early faults and flaws. ®

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