Microsoft Points to Surging 360 to Ease Vista Woes

New OS ignored... Game system business strong

Posted by Staff
Microsoft is taking great pleasure in preliminary figures from research group NPD for games hardware sales in North America in January. It points out that the 294,000 360s sold this January is an 18% rise on the 250,000 units sold in the same period last year. However the fact that last year the machine was sold out and this year store shelves bulge with 360 stock went unmentioned.

"Xbox 360 had a fantastic January, and we feel great about our position in the marketplace," commented Molly O'Donnell, group manager for Microsoft's entertainment and devices division at Microsoft.

According to the same data, Nintendo’s Wii sold 436,000 units. There were 244,000 PlayStation 3s sold.

Microsoft’s upbeat spin on the news (and its enthusiasm to get that news out there) comes at a time when the company’s shares have taken a knock lately, following poor uptake of the latest iteration of Windows, Windows Vista.

Enter Xbox 360, here to pep up the market, reassure shareholders and their sensitive portfolios and highlight a strong business area. The irony of this cannot be lost. It was only five years ago that Microsoft's owners were eyeing the Xbox project with absolute horror. A somewhat botched launch and complete apathy from the key Japanese market gave a bleak outlook of what was one of the largest investments in entertainment technology ever.

Comments

Joji 21 Feb 2007 14:40
1/1
Come on MS, where do you think all the gamers are? Many have swithced from PC to 360, so logic dictates that a new high powered OS will suffer because of this.

You can't have your cake and eat it, Mr Gates. Just as well you have 360 to sell because its earned you back some respect for good value and service. If only you could learn and extend this gratitude to the old PC too, lower the price of Vista and things will improve.
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