2009 is a bad year for consoles, with downward spirals seen all over the world. The Xbox 360, however, seems to be insisting upon not failing this year, with increased growth and a freshly revealed figure of nine million European console sales.
EMEA VP Chris Lewis states that the 360 is the only console to see a positive growth this year, while the PS3 and Wii have seen slowing sales over the past few months. He also boasts that the Xbox 360 now accounts for around 27% of the overall console market. In other words, Microsoft is pleased with itself.
“Our installed base is now well over nine million in Europe, where we enjoy about 27% of the current share of the console market,” says Lewis, proving I didn’t lie in the last paragraph. “This calendar year, we’re the only console showing positive growth. That’s 22% on the first half against a market that is down to a similar margin overall. So we are bucking that trend.”
As always, Microsoft didn’t speculate as to how many of those sales were people who just bought brand new systems are their last ones broke for no apparent reason.
Published: Aug 17, 2009 02:40 pm