Black Friday Boasts from Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo

Black Friday, for those of us who live outside the United States, is the Friday after Thanksgiving when, replete with good will and thanks, our American chums go and spend cash, cash, cash. This year, as ever, all the platform holders are bullish about video game console and handhelds sales.

Let's start with Nintendo. Why? It sold the most and came up with a figure: 1.5 million units including both DSi and Wii. In fact, "more than 550,000 Wii consoles at the new price of $199.99" according to Venture Beat.

What of Sony? According to Patrick Seybold , "The 2009 holiday season got off to an amazing start for PlayStation, with all key retailers showing a significant increase for PS3, PSP and key holiday titles over Black Friday and the holiday weekend. PlayStation 3 demand was at an all time high with the system selling more than 440,000 units for the week ending 11/29/09."

Now for Microsoft, with a price cut, surely it would talk up its figures as well? Not so much. Aaron Greenberg, never one to dwell too long on the detail, said that the Xbox 360 sold "more than [two times the] previous week sales." How many did the company sell in the previous sales week? He didn't say. VGchartz, for its part, says that the week ending 21st November that 360 sold 146,221 in the Americas.