Mercury News writer and Microsoft guru Dean Takahashi has published a memo penned by Microsoft games chief Don Mattrick, who expects that "Xbox 360 is on track to register the biggest year in video game history."According to Mattrick North American hardware, software and accessory sales for Xbox 360 exceeded $3.5 billion, reportedly $1 billion more than Wii and $2 billion more than PlayStation 3. "When December data is added," he said, "we expect Xbox 360 in 2007 to have generated more calendar year revenue than any other gaming platform ever, including PS2 at its peak."
Mattrick's biggest claim comes in implicitly hailing the Xbox 360 as this generation's console winner. "History has shown that the eventual winner of each console generation was the console that generated the most 3rd party revenue, and according to the most recent NPD data, Xbox 360 generated more 3rd party revenue in 2007 than Nintendo and Sony combined."
Unsurprisingly not mentioned in the memo is the Xbox 360's performance in Japan. The memo also revealed some new Xbox Live statistics, including mention that the service has surpassed 10 million Xbox Live users, "over six months before our stated goal of July 2008 announced at E3 last year." We've compiled those after the break.
- Halo 3 players have "logged over 1.5 billion multiplayer matches since launch – that's an average of 14 million matches a day."
- "Since its launch, Xbox LIVE has hosted over 4.9 billion hours on the network – that's equal to 204 million days or more than 560,000 years of gaming."
- "Right now Xbox LIVE Marketplace features over 3,500 total hours of downloadable content and has hosted more than 380 million downloads."
- "More than 500 hours of content from the ABC Television Network, ABC Family, ABC News, Disney Channel and Toon Disney" is coming via the new deal with ABC and MGM.
[Via GameDaily]
(Page 1) Reader Comments
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Skip ahead to now... and I'm glad I was wrong. The 360 is a great machine with a strong lineup of games, and I am really impressed by how well MS was able to turn things around.
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3rd party support has always meant victory in the past, but now that the third parties really have no clear-cut choice for ALL of their content (with no platform satisfying all of the market), broad appeal itself shall win
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Of course, last generation when they were neck-and-neck with Nintendo for 2nd place (a contest they won), they won simply because they had more consoles on the ground (terms they now deny are criteria for winning), even though Nintendo made money while they pissed themselves a $6 billion pool of red ink
sorry, but the big 3's corporate arrogance really pisses me off
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MS is just an example in this case, everyone does it
But this gen...I could think of dozens of reasons to own each system. Yes even the PS3. 2008 will be a great year for that system.
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I agree with your SNES/Genesis comparison though. I like all 3 consoles for their own reasons. I'm so glad we moved past that.
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Thanks.
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what are you guys up to? how about that obama? and why can't we have another season of arrested development?
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Oh yea the xbox 360 rules, but so does the PS3 and the Wii in their own way.
A Friend of Fred, if you will.
I'll give MS this much, they know how to milk all the money out of their consumers.
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The 360 is hands down the best console right now. Period.
"According to Mattrick North American hardware, software and accessory sales for Xbox 360 exceeded $3.5 billion, reportedly $1 billion more than Wii and $2 billion more than PlayStation 3."
Lates.
I assume by the "oh this again?" you meant my listing of so called "optional" things to bring it up to par with something else? I'll give you that a wifi add-on is optional, and I'd even give you the extra controller(s) and battery packs. However, to play online with a 360 you have to shell out about $50 per year, and I'm fairly sure you have to have a storage device. If you're not going to play online with a 360 you're either going to be playing Mass Effect or Oblivion by yourself or something that is multiplayer, so either way you have to spend extra cash to play multiplayer.
@Laughingtarget
I'd assume that more than half of that 10mil are paying for the gold subscription, but even so I'll let that slide. Like the article says it's all in the add-ons and accessories, a 20GB HDD for $100 is by no means a bargain (reference point: the HDD I bought for my computer was ~$80 for 111GB). They are price gouging on most of their accessories, but there's nothing anyone can do to stop it, and thusly that $3.5bil isn't the accomplishment they're making it out to be.
So basically, 10 million 360 users have broadband, because who would pass up silver even if they didn't want to pay for Live proper?
Shop around and stop buying all Nintendo brand stuff and you won't get nickel and dimed nearly as badly.
Cheers...
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Of course MS is going to talk about revenue. Because in terms of hardware units sold and net profit, they're behind Nintendo. And of course MS is going to talk about 3rd party game revenue. Because that's their strength.
All companies are going to toss out numbers that make them look good. Try not to eat it up so readily. MS definitely has its problems, namely the shoddy hardware (but thanks for replacing all the RROD units, seriously), and its poor performance in Japan. So sorry if we're all rolling our eyes at MS's claim to victory. The console war has only just begun.
all talk, no game
I'm sorry. Microsoft is just boasting about what they've accomplished. They're talking, not doing.
Look at Sony (just as an example). They know they're not #1 and they know they may never be #1. But even if they were only slightly behind MS and had a great amount of success, I don't think they'd boast about it. They never got cocky when it came to the PS2 dominating.
All Microsoft is doing is taking pride in a war they haven't won yet.
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And if you think that Sony doesn't gloat, you've never heard Phil Harrison.
Yea it's easy to say that the 360 is "winning", but wtf does that mean? Yea they have the most revenue, but does that matter when you don't profit? Why not just take the numbers for what they are. Companies really like revenue, but they love profit. I think MS's games division finally turned one in their 6 years of existence, so it's definitely an indication that they're heading in the right direction. Of course, it took Halo 3 to do it, but hey, the same can be said about Wii Sports for the Wii.
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