14 DAY TRIAL // The Microsoft made Xbox 360 home gaming console has managed to sell better than the PlayStation 3 in November on the United States market. And the Redmond-based company, which has seen tough competition from Sony in the last few months, since the price cuts were enacted, was quick to point out how well its device performed during the last four weeks. The best selling home gaming console for November was the Nintendo Wii, which managed to shift more than 1.2 million units during the period.
Aaron Greenberg, who is the product management director at Microsoft, talked to Gamasutra and told them that “We had consumers spend more money on the Xbox 360 than the Wii or the PS3: $838 million in hardware, software, and accessories.”
He stated that “While we do see Sony got a bump from their price drop and their introduction of new hardware, we're now seeing stabilization back to more typical marketshare levels. And I think that's really driven by the fact that we have a $199 SKU.”
One of the reasons for the software giant’s success has been the release of Modern Warfare 2, the first person shooter from Infinity Ward and Activision, which sold 4.2 million units on the Xbox 360 and just 1.8 million on the PS3, probably prompting a variety of players to also pick the console itself. The supremacy of the Microsoft console is helped by the promise of downloadable content that will arrive in the spring of 2010 exclusively for it.
Greenberg also mentioned the new experience the Xbox 360 delivers as a reason for its success, saying that the device is much easier to use and that it offers a lot more services complementing gaming. Netflix is a well established service on the Microsoft platform and this fall has also brought Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm to those who use the Xbox Live Gold service.