Microsoft has always pushed to be near the top, but this year they take it. A good year of solid games and great holiday sales has the Xbox 360 taking the title as the top-selling game console in the world for the first time.
Earnings reports that came out this week show that Microsoft's 8.2 million Xbox 360s easily tops Sony's 6.5 million PS3s and Nintendo's 5.6 million Wii systems sold for the Q. Yearly grand totals put Microsoft and Sony a bit closer, with Xbox 360 selling 14.9 million over Sony's 14.1 million. They both beat Nintendo's 10.33 million for the Wii.
If you want lifetime numbers, Nintendo still wins, with 95 million Wiis sold, beating 66 million Xbox 360s and 62 million PS3s.
GeekWire reminds that Microsoft's Don Mattrick said at last year's E3 that the Xbox 360 would become the #1 console globally. Nice call, Don.
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
4:15 PM on 02.03.2012 | 
No no, seriously, this year will be the year that the PS3 does something spectacular and restores Sony to the PS2 style age of dominance.
Yeah, I know the difference between Sony and MSoft this gen, as far as the experience they provide with their consoles, is negligible, and they're both focusing more on multimedia capabilities as a means of competing with each other now that the third party exclusive is all but dead, but this is Sony's year to lose.
This year Sony will sell a ton of PS3s and that will mean something to us... because thats meaningful stuff... to us... when things sell better than something else... when there's only 3 competitors in a multi billion business... these mean things to us!
Sorry, I can't help but mentally prepare myself for how this news will read on N4G later today.
It was worth it for the royal corgi though.
That or Deathsmiles was an even bigger console seller than even I anticipated.
Feel free to continue jumping into conclusions and make blanket statements about what other people are supposedly saying between the lines.
Some day you may come full circle and actually be right.
I alone have gone through 3, I noticed Fraser Brown say hes gone through 4. So between the two of us we've gone through 7.
Not trying to start a fanboy war or anything, I'm genuinely curious. Of course there's no reliable way to actually get a proper figure, but still.
It's important for MS to remember that this is the beginning of the journey, not their destination.
One thing's for sure though, there's never been a better time to be a gamer!
This coming year will be interesting indeed.
Flawed logic all up in here.
But congrats to the eugenisist psychopath Bill Gates who loves to shoot up poor people up with vaccine poison. Good job.
Because "games" have been the reason for the Wii's success all along? Here all along I thought it was fueled by the ill informed super-casual set of customers who have no reason to want one any more.
40.3 million Xbox 360s sold as of April 2010 (closest sales figure I could find to the 360S launch in June, though I didn't look particularly hard).
66 million worldwide sales as of January 9th of this year.
So that's a ballpark of 25,700,000 360S' sold. Let's assume those didn't break at all.
Using Game Informer's figure of a projected 54.2% failure rate, that would mean that 54.2% of those 40.3 million Xboxes sold prior to the 360S launch were actually replacements (somebody please correct me if I'm doing this wrong, math is not my strong suit).
40.3 million - 54.2% = 18,457,400.
Add on the 25,700,000 360S units sold (even though I'm sure many of those were bought as replacements), and you've got a ballpark of 44,157,400 units sold worldwide since the 360 launch, had the older models not broken due to the red ring of death.
In other words, less than half what the Wii sold, and around 22 million behind the PS3.
Again, I might have screwed up in there somewhere, but that's quite a dip if all those 360s had never broken.
@doubleA329
Very true my brother bought 3x360's before switching to PS3 and I know of two other people who bought at least 2 replacement Xbox360's.
Heck, I had to buy my second PS3 because my launch (6.5 years old) got the YLOD. I managed to fix it myself and back my saves up but it was a pain. I figured spending $250 for a 2 year warranty was better than Sony's $120 for 90 days.
Hopefully one day we get a crop of awesome exclusives like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon again,and not just a parade of FPS's and Kinect Games.
Please do everyone a favor and stop wasting internet space. N4G is where you want to shitpost.
"Because "games" have been the reason for the Wii's success all along?"
It was for me, and since it has a higher attach rate than the PS3, I assume for most other people who bought one as well.
Case in point: No new games released? It doesn't sell as well as before.
It's good to know one can't make a post based around genuine curiosity without being told to go take a flying leap off a cliff into the cesspool that is N4G. I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm legitimately wondering about something and not trying to start a fight.
Ass.
But then again, that would make it more impressive and people would still have shit to talk, because I mean...consoles selling and the video game industry still having customers is bad when it's not your console of choice so you have to demean everything.
Then how will they keep the hate going?
Keeps em coming keeps em coming
Also, console fanboy-ways are retarded. And no, stating a preference is not the same as shouting "XBOX RULEZZZ PS3 SUCKZZZZ!!!!"
If by "lol" you mean "lol, Nintendo absolutely destroyed everyone else this generation, and neither of the other consoles will ever even come close to the Wii's sales numbers," then yes, you're right. Wii lol.
Yeah as interesting as it would be to see the pit that spawned you I rather not catch whatever made you retarded enough to take the Internet seriously.
Anyway on topic my brother wants his own 360, technically I'm about to be a 4 time buyer of this thing( because apparently good older brothers help out little brothers, no matter how much of a pain they can be, I would like the name of the person whom created this rule, me and him need to talk)
I don't recall another console generation where more than 1 console sold more sold more than 60 million units in total, as opposed to ALL of them nowadays. The Wii's lead in market share is nowhere near as vast as what you're making it out to be. It never was either. Unless the "other consoles" happen to be the Zeebo and Gizmondo, or something.