The 3DS impresses and the Xbox 360 dominates the US

By: Musa Afridi

  |   September 10th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

Microsoft continues to take full advantage of home soil as it outsells the PlayStation 3 for 20^th straight month, while the Nintendo 3DS demonstrates the fact that portable gaming consoles may not be as dead as everyone seems to think.

The world is divided into three major segments for the video game industry. There is Japan, where Sony and Nintendo reign supreme; there is Europe where Sony has an edge over its competition and then there is the United States where Microsoft dominates all those who come before it.

Microsoft seems to have given up on Japan, where the PlayStation 2 console tends to outsell the American import, but otherwise the Xbox 360 is posting impressive sales both for the console itself as well as the Kinect.

The manufacturer also introduced a new contract deal in order to promote the console and get it into even more households. The deal allows consumers to own a 4GB Xbox 360 and a Kinect for an initial down payment of $99 and further payments to keep their Xbox LIVE account active.

The console managed to move just under 200,000 units in August, which was almost half the total number of consoles sold. To be more exact, the 193,000 Xbox 360s sold represented a 48% share of the total market.

That was not all as Anita Frazier, an NPD analyst, highlighted that despite an overall downward trend in sales, a number of consoles managed to sell more than they usually would have during this period in a console’s life cycle.

“Of the platforms that were on the market last August, none realized a year-over-year sales increase. However, compared to July 2012, the 3DS and the PS3 both experienced unit sales increases in August.”

Ms. Frazier also believes that the fact that the consoles have been in the market so long has played a major role in the sales figures decreasing every year and is expecting the next generation of consoles to change all of that.

“The current hardware systems are showing their age, so it goes without saying that it would be great to have new systems breathe life into traditional retail industry sales.”

Another interesting point raised by the analyst was how one could expect the other manufacturers to react once the Wii U was released and Anita believes it would force both Microsoft and Sony to announce their future consoles.

“I am anxious to learn more about the Wii U launch later this month. And with any luck we will hear news about other systems on the horizon.”

Whether or not that happens remains to be seen but one can begin seeing the first ray of sunlight bursting over the horizon as the dawn of the next generation of video games is nearly upon us.