July NPD 2010 – Xbox 360 is top-selling US platform for first time since Halo 3 launch

Sorry we didn’t get these up last night. I’m just working on the hardware numbers now.

Amazing graph added.

It is pretty amazing.

Got another one soon. The Japanese hardware’s just been released.

I do enjoy a nice graph with my morning cuppa, keep them coming…

The Japanese one’s up now.

Good job on the article, Pat.

@7 – Thanks!

Pretty awesome stuff from 360, really. If they can hold on for one more month, things should start to really move again in September. Can’t see PS3 getting anywhere near it in America this year now.

The PS3 has never been anywhere in the US.

I feel like I’ve been saying for years that America is where Sony need to pull their finger out. But they don’t.

@8, given two relatively similar products your average American will tend to “Buy American” even if it’s less reliable and arguably less value for money.

It’s the only reason the American auto industry prevails.

ouch at the crackdown 2 numbers :s

@9

Bro by all means don’t take this heart, but that was a retarded comment. Why in God’s name will Sony pull out in America? Where were you when Sony had the same “sale surge” when they announce a new piece of hardware? Come on bro, do your research before you post something so ignorant. And please spare me your bullshit if you’re going respond with a “you’re a fanboy” remark. Make sure you read my comment.

@12: Pulling their finger out means putting more effort in, not pulling out of the market.

10. Here I thought the only reason the American auto industry prevailed (if that’s really how it’s going) was the small metric butt-tonne of subsidising it gets from the American government.

@14, that only accounts for the recession, I’m talking about the decades where American cars have continued to trade despite superior tech and quality from Asia and Europe.

Can’t believe a shite game like Crackdown 2 managed 3rd place. What are 360 owners smoking over there?

im happy that mario galaxy and dragon quest 9 are on this those are the best nintendo games this year and crackdown2 OMFG why why why why why

dragon quest has sucked since level 5 took it over. level 5 has made some of the worst games ever to come out of japan.

Xbox 360 up by 533,700 over PS3 for the year so far. I actually thought they would have more of a lead than that considering their “New” hardware launch and all the marketing they have been doing lately.
Sony needs to make their console more appealing to the general public rather than just the tech community. More casual gamers i know are buying the 360 because its talked about as being a complete and simple package (plug and play) and the whole “It does EVERYTHING” campaign isn’t helping Sony with the casual market. From what I’ve heard from random people is that the PS3 sounds nice and all but its just too High Tech for them to mess with and too expensive (alot of 360 sales are the cheap arcade bundle). Ps3 really isn’t all that complicated in the tech department but the add campaigns kind of give mixed ideas to the general/casual gaming public.
Microsoft is smart. When you see a game commercial here in California (I assume the entire USA gets the same commercial) at the end of it the Xbox360 start up clip shows with a huge XBOX360 print at the bottom of the screen even though the game is a multiplatform. It misleads the casual/general gaming public to thinking that the game can only be played on xbox360. There are other 360 campaigns that are similar and is just a really genius effort by Microsoft.

New hardware always gives the machine in question a nice fat sales spike. The question is, will Kinect sustain or sink that momentum?

Sony also have a fairly huge marketing blitz with their Coca Cola tie in coming up.

If these numbers showed the amount of people who traded in their old systems and bought the new one…. We would all be far less impressed.

@21 Software sales I notice don’t seem to have spiked for the 360 the same as hardware, so you might be right.

Or there could be a lot of new owners buying the 360 core titles second hand I guess.

Given the 360 version of MW2 made its way back into the top I’d say that a chunk of these buyers were new to the console.

Besides, when has it ever mattered? A ton of people re-bought consoles on new revisions of the PS2 and PS3 (I know I did with the PS2, and I will on a future revision of the PS3). It’s all good business sense, and it certainly went a long way to helping the PS2 get to 140m.

Hmm the 360 seems pretty unbeatable in NA, the only advantage id say Sony have in that market is they can afford to cut the price a few more times whilst Microsoft cant as its pretty much dirt cheap as it is.

I imagine at this stage a fair few sales would be PS3 owners getting the 360 to compliment there gaming set up and vica versa of course.

I just reckon with the old model 360 going cheap it would entice PS3 owners more than the other way.

Any one have Europe figures?

The console with the better social networking will win in NA. Its basic fact now. The same reason why PS3 does so good in Japan….because they don’t care about social networking which also leads to the decline in Japanese gaming in the west.

SONY has to do something about that soon. Don’t wait until PS4, its gonna be too late.

Xbox 360 FTW