European 360 sales "have hit a wall"

by Richard Mitchell on Jun 20th 2007 2:30PM

According to Screen Digest (as reported by gamesindustry.biz) Xbox 360 sales in Europe "have hit a wall." The report notes that the Xbox 360 thus far has failed to reach outside its typical demographic of adult males (surprise!). The report also states that the Xbox 360 brand image does not hold up nearly as well in "non-Anglo Saxon markets." Judging from disappointing sales (and advertising) in markets like Japan, it's hard to disagree with that assessment. Screen Digest concludes that Microsoft must make an effort to break free of the limited number of (notably hardcore) genres associated with the Xbox 360. Still, it's not all bad, as the article does mention that many of the year's most anticipated titles will be on the 360 this holiday season, and Xbox Live remains "a beacon of hope."

Would any of our European readers care to comment on the state of the 360 in your area?

[Via Evil Avatar]

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Tags: console wars, ConsoleWars, europe

Reader Comments (49)

I live in England and pretty much everyone I know that owns a console owns a 360.

I'd agree with Nath... I don't no anyone with any other console in fact - but I, and all of my friends fit the 'adult male' demographic.

More amazing games are coming and I think sales will dramatically drive 360 ahead of the competition even further!

I come from New Zealand. We're PAL like Europe. Does that count?

If so, 95% of the gamers I know have been impressed by the 360 (including 2 Nintendo "fanboys"), although I am 1 of the only 2 people I know who actually owns a 360. (My money crippled friend keeps trying and my ex wants one.)

Perhaps MS should market the 360's other capabilities more, release more games like Viva Pinata and lower their price. Adding additional codec support might encourage more people who store movies on their computer to use the 360 to watch said movies on a TV. Just a thought.

yea, same here. I live in England & most of all my friends have 360's even people within my work & their kids have them

I live in Scotland and most of my mates have 360's and it's definately the console of choice out of the PS3 and Wii for decent gaming. Don't know where they get that sales have "hit a wall", as far as I am aware the 360 is doing pretty well in the UK.

Here in Norway i got the impression that the 360 is selling pretty good.
Great site btw.

Out of my large group of friends, only one of us owns a ps3, the rest of us own a 360

I'm a Brit living in the US. Of my American friends, I know two people with the Xbox 360, everyone else has a Wii and/or a DS.

Of my British friends, I know one guy with Xbox 360, Wii AND DS, everyone else either has a DS or a system from the last generation, mostly PS2s.

It would be interesting to get the sales figures that support the "European 360 sales have hit a wall" quote. I've got the impression the 360 is doing very well in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germand and the Scandinavian countries, and not so good in France and southern Europe, but without real sales figures it's just conjecture.

If they wish to break the family mass market in europe they need to release family games. They need to lower the price to tempt the mums into stores to spend dads money. Break the confusion between core and premium packs,Spend some money developing a family brand titles and icons that every kid wants to be or play as.
Then and only then will the family mass market flock to the 360.
Oh yeah finally it don't help things when most people have had problems with the product, word off mouth hurts but reports of failures on national tv on a prime time show like watchdog in the uk will kill it.

If there's one thing that's currently holding back the sales of the 360 in Europe, I think it's the continuous stream of negative publicity regarding its lack of quality and reputation for scratching discs. It's really sad that Microsoft doesn't tackle these issues adequately, because otherwise they would have a clear winner. In fact, I think sorting out the quality issues could be a more important factor in increasing sales than lowering the price.

well of course more people own 360s then PS3s, because 360 came out more then a year earlier. 360 came out worldwide at the same time, but PS3 came out in PAL regions much later then the US or Japan.

you cant really base sales on past purchases, the only way to really see how 360 is doing is see current sales numbers, like the past week and month in PAL regions.

Last week the 360 sold 30,000 and the PS3 15,000 2 to 1 whos hit the wall?

I for one (living in Belgium) only know 1 person who owns a 360 (and I don't own one myself either). And I knew another one but he sold it. Along with an extra controller and 3 games for under €400.
I guess he'd go for the PS3.

Belgium just is a Sony-country. They think everything Sony = quality. Tv's, sound systems, camcorders, digital camera's, you name it, they think it's the best of the best.
Same with gaming. I know more people who own a PS3. (But the number of Wii's pwn all, naturally) I think the PS3 will catch up though, in Europe. We're all (sadly) SONY's bitches..

Also in England and pretty much everyone I know with a current-gen console has a 360, or a 360 and a Wii :P

I'm Irish, and the 360 has been doing pretty well, certainly the best out of all the next gen consoles.
But I would agree with this report, the market is not growing for the 360 in the slightest.
This is because, in my opinion, un-like America, where the 360 offers Video Market, {making it not just a games console}, all the console has is games. There is no other worthy function of it. And all those games are mainly hardcore.
Interesting topic, thanks for the post/news item.

Just an FYI-- this site including sister site's such as ps3 fanboy and engadget are a bunch of Sony fanboys. Please read their articles and tell me that these idiots will always include smart @$$ remarks when it comes to HD DVD or MS.

Price, as well as XBLA content probably are the main hindrances.

Well i work at GAME in england and i can comfirm it in my area (London)

360 sales in our store has gone down dramatically since the PS3 (yes the ps3 is outselling the 360 in my store but the Wii is outselling them both combined)

I and my friends all own a 360 (and a few of them have a wii)so its either the Wii is crushing the competition (which seems the case here) or everyone has got a 360.

To microsoft europe consists of 3-4 major countries.Actually to all american companies europe is UK Germany and France.There are other countries that are waiting for xbox or any other next gen system to be sold legally.
In my country there is no legal xbox360 sale but i have a xbox360.They cant say that sales are that bad.People are playing xbox where microsoft guys doesnt dream of coming to.

I live in Norway.

I owne a Xbox 360 myself, I only have one other friend who also got the 360.

The others have DS (mostly "non gamers") or Wii. I'm 28 btw, and my friends are around the same age.

Only one person bought a PS3 that I know of.. but I have the impression that there is a lot of Sony fans in Norway..

I come from Germany. I own an Xbox 360, and so do many of my closest friends. Even a lot of my enemies own an Xbox 360, which means I always have people to play with, and play against!

One thing's for sure, if you had to pick an individual market to dominate, it would be the male market of gamers.

I have only 2 gamer friends one has a PS3 and the other has a 360... I would thing more people have a 360 than a PS3. But that only out becouse the PS3 is so expensive. The Dutch are a price conscious people. But the PS2 is still rains supreme....

oops

The part of Europe I come from has plenty of African American people, and I know quite a few of them who have Xbox 360 videogame machines.

I often see people of all races purchasing Xbox 360 games and playing Xbox 360 games on display in videogame stores.

I'm from Germany, and in my Area not many People own a 360. Not many a PS2, but alot people own a PS1 or PS2. What really sucks bout 360 in germany is the XBL content here. No new Movie trailers since nearly half a year. The last new "Artist of the month" Video was 3 month ago... not suprising everyone here's creating a second US XBL account. Also there aren't any Tv-shows to buy, and only a few Movies in HD to download.

"26. The part of Europe I come from has plenty of African American people, and I know quite a few of them who have Xbox 360 videogame machines."

Wouldn't that make the African Europeans? Just goes to show how pointless political correctness is.

I am from Netherlands and most people I know use to have 360's. But many got PS3's once their 360's started to fail. Unfortunately Europe is Sony's territory. But as long as the price is high the PS3 will not sell.

The silence from MS regarding the huge amount of failing 360s upon launch has started to dig it's way into peoples minds here in Sweden.

Loads of talk about the chance of your 360 crashing doesn't make people want to buy it. Add to that the fact that the 360 sound like a jet engine, in most cases, and you have a scenario which makes people wait for a PS3 price drop.

Other than that, the lack of good titles for children makes the PS3 look better and better, if only due to the fact that the PS2 has a huge catalogue of games for children.

Here in Spain is doing fine (and here there are too much "play"(ps2) fanatics (too much fanatism)

I'm in the north of England. Most people I know with a next-gen console have 360s and/or Wiis - most have said they haven't got a PS3 either because: a) their mates have 360s, or b) it was between a 360 or a PS3, and the 360 just happened to get there first.

However, I do get the impression that the UK is a very different market to the rest of Europe with regards to videogames, in the respect that it's closer to a US one. Also considering that Microsoft, as an American company, has most likely concentrated on the 'big four' in Europe, the rest of the continent may have swayed away from the 360 due to lack of support (and with console failures being a wound slowly healed elsewhere with replacements, this is a big issue).

I was chatting to someone the other day who works for a software publisher and he is privvy to the official Chart Track sales numbers, which as many of you will know are classified infomation. However, I have not signed an NDA, so here they are for you. All numbers are since launch.

Xbox 360 - 1,193,088
Wii – 618,278
PS3 – 281, 977

I have no reason to doubt the source of the info, obviously I'm sure many of you will take them with a pinch of salt but these are the proper numbers for the UK so far. Take from them what you will.

sionicus rex: Wow, if those numbers are corrent I can't believe the 360 is killing both systems that badly.

All I can say is if the 360 has hit a wall then the PS3 has been hit by a train! Considering it's selling 2:1 according to the latest sales figures for Europe. The PS3 had an %82 percent drop in sales after it's first week (is that hitting the wall hard enough for you?) I don't see why this is a headline? Is it because it's the 360 and people like bashing MS?

Probably "the sony protection group" those unnamed losers post stories like this. Kind of funny they post on the 360 fanboy. I wonder If you see stories like the 360 and wii are killing the ps3 on ps3 fanboy site. Just saying ps3 fanboys should not post stories on xbox 360fanboy.

I'm Scottish and 20. I know only two people who also have a 360, and they're both women. But most of the people I know are women so I suppose I'm not a very good survey conductor... >_>

Even when I had just an Xbox, the PS2 was the local champion, and I knew only ONE person who also had an Xbox. And he was an assclown modder.

The reason it's not selling anymore is because everyone who wants one, has one or can't afford it right now. There's been no big game release since Gears Of War (November, with that heavily-played Mad World advert around Christmas on top of it), so I doubt sales of the 360 will increase over here until September (Halo 3, Bioshock AND rumoured Mass Effect release dates), but they WILL increase again for sure, especially as people have realised, more outwith of the gaming community, that the PS3 relatively sucks so far. Christmas here will likely be better for 360 sales than last Christmas.

And GTA is ridiculously popular here, so I expect the news of exclusive 360 content for GTA4 to sway quite a few Sony loyalists. I know a lot of PS2 owners who had a PS2, primarily for the GTA games.

I also come from Belgium, and I have a Xbox 360. Unfortunately, I don't have belgian friends who are xbox360 fanboys... I don't think Xbox 360 has a great success in our country... Maybe some blockbusters, like Halo 3, PGR4 or Bioshock will change their mind...

Here in Poland 360 isn't a very common console, but neither is Wii or (obviously) PS3. Few of my friends have 360 the rest of people probably would like to have x0 as well but can afford it ($500 here), so yeah - it's pretty rare here considering most of my friends are gamers;)

..and also they're concerned about the fail rate of our beloved console:)

I live in Belgium, and unlike Frexy Q. said, the 360 is doing great here. I have a friendslist full of Belgian people that own one, and yet I know nobody that ownes a PS3.

VIDEO MARKETPLACE would be a good start, especially if you want to appeal to 'non-hardcore' gamers. Most of my gaming friends have a 360, and they all came from the PS2 like me. Only 1 person I know has got a PS3 but he's a very non-informed gamer and bought it just because it was a Playstation. (PS2 owner also.)

Around these parts in Wales, UK most people think the 360 is an FPS console without much variety. And the fact it's heavily biased to America and fuck everyone else.

I live in Belgium and none of my friends own a "next-gen" console. They're still playing "last-gen" consoles (all of them PS2s naturally lol). Sad, I know. But then again they're not something you'd call "gamers" ;).

I live in Norway, and I know four people with 360s. Mostly the people I know here have Wii, PS2, and DSes.

Well I'm 17, and many of my friends have Xbox 360's (and a single PS3 owner). It's obvious that the Xbox 360 is only attractive to our age group. The official Xbox website is really badly done in my opinion and there's very little to appeal to other age groups, and what there is is simply not marketed well to those groups.
But come the release of GTA VI, much more people in this age group will be buying Xbox 360's. They simply cannot afford the PS3.

I'm from South Africa which believe it or not falls under Europe, and I have to say that while we got the 360, we haven't got "official" Live yet and the local support is mediocre at best.

Price is also an issue, countries like this still see greater value in buying a PS2 because it's so cheap, and so few people have broadband, let alone HDTV's.

Microsofts treatment and commitment to countries besides the US (I'm thinking XBLVM in particular) is a lot worse than Sony, in a huge way.

having said that, the 360 is selling, we're piggybacking on European XBL and I really think what the 360 needs is a solid 1-2, price cut and killer family friendly game released at the same time, not Halo, something like a Kameo 2 with 4 player co-op.

@45 Doobichief: Interesting, I thought Africa was it's own region entirely. You know, US/Canada, Asia, Europe, and Africa.

And you made a good point too.

So to recap:-
Video Marketplace for EVERYONE.
A decent price cut.
Killer App (Casual/Family friendly).

There! Job done!! The 360 is saved!!!

I live in Brazil (so, "non-Anglo Saxon market") and everyone that i know who owns a next-gen console have a 360.

Couldn't agree more with you Boff. If Microsoft would give the rest of the world what they've been giving the US and Canada, the 360 sales will tripple (and they should also do something about the failure rates)

Is the wall named 'summer' by any chance?

European 360 sales "have hit a wall"

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