Microsoft: 17.7 million Xbox 360s and 8.1 million copies of Halo 3 sold worldwide

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jan 3rd 2008 9:00PM

Microsoft sent out a little email of jubilation this evening touting sales figures for the Xbox 360 and a few of its published titles. Microsoft states it has sold 17.7 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide and although the NPD numbers aren't out yet for December, the Xbox 360 sales should be higher than the 770K sold in November. Not including the data from December, Microsoft says it currently has a hardware to software ratio of 6.9; that's a .3 increase since we last checked all the consoles in October.

Speaking of software, "teh Haloz" was sold 8.1 million copies since launching Sept. 25 and it appears the statistic that around 50% of Xbox 360 owners have Halo 3 is not just a US number, but a global figure. In a great sign for fans of dramatic space operas, Mass Effect sold 1.6 million units since introducing us to interstellar pleasure Nov. 20 -- keep those Hanar tentacles crossed for a sequel announcement this year. The full NPD numbers will hit the streets on Jan. 17 to give us the full details of this very merry consumermas.

Tags: attach-rate, halo3, mass-effect, Xbox-360, xbox360

Reader Comments (150)

Wow, Halo 3 has sold as many copies as the PS3 has consoles.

Lmao. You had to start that war in the first post. =)

It's just an observation.

I am, after all, a PS3 fanboy. (Doesn't the Heavenly Sword avatar give that away?)

No... because no one has PS3s to play it on...

I'm sorry that was mean...

NOT!

It'll be interesting to see what happens when the 360 gets the pro version to $249 or even $299.

It's funny, cuse it's true.

Oh boy, here comes the fanwar...

Oh boy. How many posts do you all think this is gonna get? I'm guessing 150-200.

Why? I can only imagine some fantards saying "BUT THATS COUNTING RROD CONSOLES LOL!", but apart from that, good news is hard to flame.

Hey that's my job!

178 comments.

Is anyone else having problems finding an Xbox 360 Pro? It seems as
if the entire greater Austin, TX and greater San Antonio, TX areas
are sold out of the Pro version. I've seen plenty of Arcades, but no
Pros or Elites even. I've been focusing on Best Buy because I have
some gift cards to use, but I've also noticed this trend in a few
Targets as well as Fry's. A Best Buy employee confirmed that their
system shows all stores near me within a 50+ mile radius as being
sold out of the Pro. They had no idea as when they are expecting more either. What gives? Just curious if others have noticed this in their areas. Thanks.

Actually just got done hunting down 360s all day. Checked two best buys, two targets and two walmarts. None of them had 360s (Not even the arcade version) and of course there were no Wiis. Wish I would have snapped a shot of the massive pile of PS3's in the aisle though.

By the way I didn't find one and my quest was cut short because a break line literally exploded on my truck and fluid was everywhere. Gotta go fix it tomorrow morning.

i live in San Antonio and all the pro and elites are gone i cant find any arcade sku's either, but the best buy by the rim, six flags fiesta Texas, has plenty of everything

Went to the Woodland Hills, Ca Best Buy recently. Heard people asking for Pros and Elites with no hope in sight for them. There were stacks of 360 Arcades though, and of the 80GB and 40GB PS3s

I live in Dripping Springs (Austin area) and there were no Elites or Premiums in stock at my closest Walmart.

Here in Montreal, Quebec. Pros and Elites are sold out. Arcades are almost sold out while there's still some Halo edition left. The PS3 40 and 80 GB have huge stacks everywhere.. I work in Future Shop and we know that pros and elites are hard to find. (Wii, guitar hero, dance dance revolution are extremely in demand also)

Yeah I'm on the quest for a second Wii guitar hero and a second 360 guitar hero for myself (so I can play with the ladyfriend) and the wii for my sisters so they can have two guitars.

By the way just to clarify the Best Buys had tons of Halo edition xboxes but that wasn't an option.

There were plenty of 360s in at Best Buy and Target where I am in Cleveland as of January 1st, at least.

No DS's, though. Shame, too, because I was all ready to go out and buy one finally the other day...even though I have no idea how I'll find time to play it!

I think it's just that stores haven't gotten their post-Christmas restocks yet, at this point, to be honest.

Here in Brazil you can find any one of then in any store, including all 360 and PS3 models and, yes, a bunch of Wiis

Of course, here they cost 4 times the price...

where i live they seem to have everything except Wii's and you might have to search a little for a DS Lite too. other than that, there are plenty of PS3's, PSP's, and 360's to be had. but then again, i do live in the middle of nowhere (Lower Eastern Shore of MD).

Wow thats sad. Xbox is the Halo machine just like PS2 became the Madden machine. Seriously, everyone i know that has 360 or even discusses it ALWAYS mentions Halo in the same sentence. This will be why they wont even hit 30 millino when its all said and done....well, this and the fact that "Worldwide Sales" figures in Xbox terms basically lacks 1/3 of the market.

That's not true. As you can see, the 360 is the one system with very high attach rates, indicating that people buy more than just Halo.However, Iit still is a great addition to any collection.

I am just referring to public perception of the system, is all. Take for instance the argument of how the 360 will affect Wii sales by lowering the price of its base console to around the price of a Wii. That is complete crap. The public perception will not change regardless of price. If Wii was $300 it would still sell like it does due to the public perception it has. Same sitch with the DS/PSP. Let the PSP match the DS price point. Won't matter.

Again, look at the attach rate. You must be as dumb as you look.

lol ok...and how does the attach rate have anything to do with the amount of sales the 360 will amount to? NOTHING the 360 has done or will be doing show it will have hardly more success than the 1st box. It's funny how the "two Gamecubes taped together" really took off, because the 360 truly is two xboxs taped together.

and the ps3 is a wii and ps2 ducttaped together, see i can be as dumb as u lilco.

The 360 and wii is doing great saleswise.

in bestbuys i only see stacks of ps3s, halo360, and rockband for ps3.

You mean the fact that it started first and has the biggest installed base and best games is not enough? The Wii sells like it does because of the new audience, but I bet my ass there are many more gaming enthusiasts in the 360 crowd than in the Wii crowd. Since I couldn't care less about dumb casual games (also the games that sell best on Wii), the Wii leaves really little for us enthusiasts, aside from 1st party flagship titles (not all 1st party games are even good) and rare 3rd party gems (Zack&Wiki, RE:4)

What other console was like that? Hmm...

That being said, the only new-gen console I own is a Wii, because I have a nice PC gaming rig. Have had a blast playing on friends 360's though, and plan on buying either a 360 or a PS3 when I get an HDTV.

"lol ok...and how does the attach rate have anything to do with the amount of sales the 360 will amount to?"

Simple - when people buy lots of games, then MS makes more money to sink in development, then they lower console costs, then developers make even more games because they will sell, then more exclusives, then more people buy the consoles to play the huge library, blah blah blah.

"NOTHING the 360 has done or will be doing show it will have hardly more success than the 1st box."
That statement is so damn stupid it shocks me. How the hell do you know what their future actions will do?

Dude, you are just flame baiting and being a troll. The 360 has sold very well, and the developers seem to love it. Acting like they have failed is pretty desperate fanboyism. (Also, I have a 360 and have hardly played Halo - make crap up much?.)

Who cares what the japanese buy? They can hardly open thier eyes!

That's weird. To me it's the "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" machine.

I play other stuff, but I have never even touched Halo 3. I'm just not that interested. I'll grab it when GameStop is loaded down with tons of used copies and it's $29.00 or less.

Until then, I can wait. Shoot the aliens. Meh. I'd rather explore an entire continent full of hidden mysteries than follow a track through a target-shooting game, or worse, listen to 12-year-olds spew racial slurs while circle-strafing everyone.

Give me a good single-player experience and I'm fine.

I'm guessing these are shipped numbers.

vgchartz says they're shipped numbers.

http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=745

They are SOLD to retailers.. They just don't ship 360's to stores and then get a check once they sell.. These are sold 360.. And please don't even bring that joke of a site VGAChartz into this.. Suddenly VGAChartz know more about 360 sales then MS does??

Yeah it isn't like retail stores constantly buy supplies. They only buy them from Microsoft when they are getting sold in their stores. Shipped/sold units is an accurate number and a good representation of how many units are in customers hands, especially considering the number of PS3s to 360s you see in stock at a retail store at any given day. Which is like 60-70 to 5-6 (atleast at Best Buy)

You only hate VGChartz because they don't tell the version of the truth you want to hear.

Their numbers are as reliable as NPD and MediaCreate's numbers. They track number of consoles in the home vs sold to stores. Shipped numbers aren't always accurate. Remember when MS claimed last spring that they'd hit their 10 million console goal in a year. That was bullshit, because what they had done was shipped 10 million consoles, that sat in warehouses until 3 or 4 months later when they ACTUALLY broke 10 million.

Actually, shipped numbers are extremely accurate compared to how many are taking home. Its not very hard for a company to track how many consoles they have shipped out.

I just remember that people complained about Sony's shipped numbers. Even though the 360s are sold out here (except for the craptacular arcade version), I'm sure there are plenty on shelves in Europe and Japan where the PS3 is outselling it.

Imagine if half of the worldwide PS2 owners owned one specific game? What is that over 50 million?

"Imagine if half of the worldwide PS2 owners owned one specific game? What is that over 50 million?"

Uh sorry thats such a lame statement.

How many PS2 owners have had more than 1 PS2? I'm on a 3rd unit, and of all the people that I know that have PS2s (quite a bit) not one of them has their original unit. The PS2's been around so long now that a good portion of their sales numbers are resells.

Also who said that every 360 owner has a H3? 17.7 consoles and 8.1 copies of the game doesnt equate to every 360 owner having Halo3. That means that less than half of the 360 owners have purchased the game.

I don't necessarily see the reason for the fanwar. Interesting stats, tho. Halo 3 has been great for talking to more of my friends lately. My best friend who just moved to Austin, TX just got his 360 when he moved there (as well as the Wii he just bought last week because he's a Metroid fiend). And I swear it's been the best way we've kept in touch via the goofy robotic sounding headset.

And all that damn Hanar comment made this one think about is how this one's roommate always finishes any game this one buys before this one does.

He makes sweet loving with the Asari and all this one gets is a sweet compliment for this one's penchant for the Paragon role.

Man, was that ever disappointed. Thanks for all the quality time gloating in this one's face about it.

Not trying to spark the flame here, but I think 360 + Wii gives you about the best game selection at this point. But then again this one has been drinking the Nintendo koolaid since day one.

Jesus Markez, I think you (you might understand better if I say "that one") need some professional counseling. Don't post in the second, third or fourth person. This one thinks your crazy.

Otherwise I agree with your comments wholeheartedly.

Mass Effect sequel? Please KOTOR 3 first!

And impressive numbers

WOW! At @$60 (Maybe low considering the $120 copy with the helmet) per copy that is almost half a billion dollars!!! DAMN!!!

Interestingly, if you divide US sales of CoD4 and Assasins by installed base, the figures are quite close for 360 (2.5mn / 9mn units) and PS3 (0.8-0.9mn / 3.5mn units)

Maybe the attach rate only highlights an interesting fact about 360 gaming - the one copy per user / XBOX live phenomenon. The 360 community is so dominated by say 3-4 million Live Gold user (who are about 25% of the total units) - users who play a lot of multiplayer, shooter games. Hence these games tend to have high attach rates, unlike in single-player games such as Bioshock or Uncharted where you are likely to be playing on one copy, in some guy's living room.
Which partly explains why Halo 3 sold 8mn, and Gears sold 2-3 times as much as Bioshock on just half the install base.

Must say that Mass Effect sales are quite good for a non-multiplayer game, though the attach rate is not extraordianrily high at about 10% - IMHO ME probably deserves to be the title selling 8 million copies, far more so than Halo 3.

Halo 3 was such a disappointment.

Will you people give it up already?
It came out months ago. We are quite aware that some people like certain games and other people dislike them.

In the year of progressive and inventive FPS games Halo 3 and UT3 have been stains.

Pff, aside from some repetitive level design, Halo 3 did everything that it set out to do right. ZOMG ITS MORE HALO!! Well of course it is, if you expected otherwise you are a retard. At least they added equipment, saved films, and the forge. The campaign is damn nice, specially co-op. So yeah, I don't see what's disappointing about Halo 3, except that it didn't re-invent the FPS genre.

Well people don't typically like anything new and inventive in the FPS genre or any genre really.
(SEE: Shadowrun) People want the same shit they've already played over and over with a new coat of paint on it.

Regardless of your opinion the amount of technology in Halo deserves praise, A level editor, save films and 4 player co-op with campaign scoring straight out of the box? Thats outrages for a console game plus it was a great game in my opinion...In any other year it would ave won Game of the year....Halo bashing is pointless its the highest selling game of the year ...Hell it might put up GTA and Gran Turismo numbers...It deserves its praise and Bungie does a great job....If you don't like Halo so what but don't hate on it for no reason...8 million people aren't idiots

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Microsoft: 17.7 million Xbox 360s and 8.1 million copies of Halo 3 sold worldwide

Reader Comments (150)

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