Xbox 360 Sales Decline, Still Leader
posted Saturday May 18, 2013 by Scott Ertz
Even though Nintendo's WiiU console is just starting its life and Microsoft's Xbox 360 is ending its own, Microsoft held its top spot last month. The company has held the spot for 28 consecutive months and even incredibly slumping sales can't stop the success train.
As of this moment we are only 3 days away from the Next Xbox reveal event and this, of course, has led to a major slowdown in Xbox 360 sales. In fact, the console sold only 130,000 units, which is a major downturn from 302,000 (February) and 261,000 (March) over the previous 2 months. Even with more than a 50% drop in sales, the console couldn't be touched in numbers.
The decline, of course, comes as no surprise. Since Sony's PlayStation 4 "reveal" event, all eyes have been on Microsoft. The event, which didn't show off any hardware, caused Larry Hyrb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson and, more importantly, Microsoft's Director of Programming for Xbox, to say "Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach." Now, this has led everyone to believe we will see actual hardware from the software giant on Tuesday.
With hardware complete, we can almost certainly expect to see the Next Xbox console relatively soon. The reveal of the Xbox 360 S at E3 a few years ago ended in press leaving with the new device and product hitting store shelves almost immediately. I don't expect to see the same with the Next Xbox, but I do expect a quick turnaround. With all of that said, it is massively impressive that the 360 is still the top dog.
Make sure to check out The UpStream on Tuesday for a live blog of the reveal event as well as staff reactions.
