1 Million 360s a Month By Year's End

GameDailyBiz reports that Microsoft plans to have one million 360's produced a month by the end of the year. From the article: "As has been previously reported Xbox 360 production and availability has already been significantly increased in recent weeks. In the period through Microsoft's fiscal year ending in June, the company expects to pump out 2 to 3 times the number of units it did previously. With Sony's PlayStation 3 launching this November across the globe, Microsoft still has a window of opportunity during which it can extend its lead in the next-gen race considerably."

Smoke And Mirrors

[mikeisme77]

Just ramping up production won't mean more people buying them. Maybe some none sports/FPS games would help things out. Or a game that you can't buy for $10 less on the older generation (might not be as pretty, but it's $10 less and is just as fun). Lower system price would be nice too, as only the early adopters (most of which have their 360 already) are willing to pay $400+ for a system with little original content.

1 million per month?

[Generic Guy]

At one million per month, it sounds like they're going from terrible undersupply to terrible oversupply.

How many 360's sold to date?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Increasing the rate of production is all well and good, but how big is the installed base for 360 right now, and how big do they expect it to be by the time PS3 comes out?

I'm especially curious about non-US markets here. Has the 360 been selling ANY units in Japan? Last I heard, the answer was no; what happens if we have the 360 as the runaway winner of this console generation here in the States, but the PS3 or Revolution annihilates it in Japan? It would be kind of a weird dichotomy...

Re:Commodity parts == Fast time to market

[mikeisme77]

When you decide to build from commodity parts, you're deciding to sacrifice performance for development speed. Maybe the XBox 360 won't be as good as the PS3, but it will certainly be more available and cheaper than it. Which is the same reason Nintendo's "underpowered" system shouldn't be ignored. They're parts are even more readily available than those in the 360 (with the possible exception of the controllers) so they should be able to roll them out quickly right out of the gate and with some EXCELLENT first party titles. If they can just get Konami, Square Enix, Capcom, et al to fully commit to at least one launch game (or soon after launch) than they may be able to reverse their recent console fortunes.

360s

[the computer guy nex]

"I'm especially curious about non-US markets here. Has the 360 been selling ANY units in Japan? Last I heard, the answer was no; what happens if we have the 360 as the runaway winner of this console generation here in the States, but the PS3 or Revolution annihilates it in Japan? It would be kind of a weird dichotomy..."

Microsoft didn't even run one commercial or print ad for the 360 in Japan prior to launch. That is a good indicator of what MS thinks of the Japanese market.

MS would be perfectly happy of dominating the States (which it might the way the PS3 is going) and losing in Japan.

Friend of mine had to stand in a line of over 40 people for 8 hours a month after launch to get a console and they are still very rare to find on shelves. The demand for this product is unreal.

Re:1 million per month?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any refrences to support this claim? Not saying it's wrong, but I can't find any sales figures.

Re:1 million per month?

[brokeninside]

According to NPD March Game Sales Specifics Added [gamasutra.com], the PS2 is still outselling the XBOX 360:

on the hardware front, it was revealed that the Xbox 360 sold through just under 200,000 copies in North America in March, showing the continued shortages of the console, allegedly now ameliorated. Elsewhere, the PlayStation 2 still led the way with almost 275,000 sales, and the Xbox (just under 85,000) and GameCube (just under 65,000) brought up the rear.

This compares to 160k XBOX 360s sold in Februrary according to February game sales continue slide [gamespot.com]:

According to industry sources, more than 160,000 Xbox 360s were sold in February. That compares to more than 300,000 PlayStation 2's, more than 170,000 PlayStation Portables, and over 150,000 Nintendo DS units sold during the month of February.

The only really interesting number to me is that almost six months after the launch of the 360, PS2s are still moving off the shelves faster than 360s. But before one reads to much into that, it ought to be recognized that the 360 hasn't been introduced into all markets while the PS2 has pretty much gone into every geographic area where it will be sold. Hence when the March numbers were released, which included Australia for the first time, it wasn't the same comparison as for February. The flip side of that fact, though, is that XBOX sales in existing markets may have declined in March. I don't know how many units were sold in Australia and other new markets that ought to be subtracted from the 200k March figure to compare to the 160k Feb figure.

In any case, better numbers won't really be availible next year. IMO, the key numbers to watch for (assuming Revolution and PS2 launches this fall) will be the Q4 2006 reports. Although, it will be significant if the PS2 continues to outsell the 360 in Q2 and Q3 of 2006.