Black Friday is the most notorious shopping day of the year in the United States. The day after Thanksgiving is, traditionally, when retailers around the country slash prices, give consumers amazing deals and generally try to raise those holiday revenues for eager company owners and stockholders.
In the gaming realm, Black Friday holds significant sway in getting new units into the hands of players, and now, we have sales figures for the big three: Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.
So let’s compare the figures and see what we come up with.
Microsoft: Microsoft reported exceptionally strong sales figures for the Black Friday period. Their figure of 750,000 Xbox 360s sold in the United States is down a bit from the 960,000 they sold during Black Friday 2011, but they are still the winner at retail. As we noted in the original story, and as you’ll see below, Xbox 360 nearly doubled the sales of Wii U in a shorter period of time: Xbox 360 sales were only counted from November 18th to November 23rd.
Microsoft also notes that the sales of the eagerly-anticipated exclusive FPS Halo 4 “exceeded expectations with impressive sales,” and that “Xbox Live Gold subscription card sales increased more than 50 percent compared to last year’s Black Friday week.”
Nintendo: Nintendo never released official sales figures per se, but Nintendo of America’s President Reggie Fils-Aime told CNET that 400,000 Wii U units were sold in the console’s first week of sales in North America. Wii U first went on sale on November 18th, so, assuming Fils-Aime indeed meant a full week, 400,000 Wii U units were sold between November 18th and November 24th.
For comparison’s sake, the original Wii sold 200,000 more units than Wii U -- or 600,000 total Wiis -- during its first eight days on the market back in 2006.
On the handheld front, the Nintendo 3DS continues to push a healthy number of units. During the same period spanning from November 18th to November 24th, 3DS sold 250,000 units. Strangely, the original Nintendo DS sold more units – 275,000 – though perhaps more interesting is that the original Wii is still selling in the shadow of Wii U’s launch. 300,000 Wiis were sold during the week Fils-Aime discussed.
Sony: Sony was the last to release their Black Friday numbers. The time period they use in their statistics – November 18th to November 24th – lines up almost exactly with both Microsoft’s and Nintendo’s sample.
PlayStation 3 sold 525,000 units in the United States in that period of time, and similarly to the Xbox 360, outsold the Wii U in its first week on the market. Sony delved into some statistics the other two companies didn’t provide, noting that “Black Friday bundle sales increased 15%, and total PS3 sales including hardware, software and peripherals, grew 9% over the same period last year.”
Sony also disclosed PlayStation Vita sales. The struggling handheld had a relative uptick in units pushed, selling 160,000 units during the Black Friday period. These are great sales for Sony, but those numbers must be put into context; both Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS outsold Vita by a healthy margin in the same period of time, by 115,000 and 90,000 units, respectively.
Finally, Sony commented that PlayStation Plus continues to do incredible numbers for the company. "Sales of PlayStation Plus subscriptions on PlayStation Network increased 259% compared to last year’s Black Friday period,” Sony stated, with “customer satisfaction rates for PS Plus… above 95%."
For quick reference, here are the sales figures for all consoles and handhelds during Black Friday week.
- Xbox 360 - 750,000
- PlayStation 3 - 525,000
- Wii U - 400,000
- Nintendo DS - 275,000
- Nintendo 3DS - 250,000
- PlayStation Vita - 160,000
Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.
Source : ign[dot]com
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