So what if Nintendo bags the recognition of having created two of the top-selling consoles in the United States for the year 2010. It seems that Microsoft’s gaming products aren’t lagging much behind either. According to recent data released by the NPD Group, Xbox 360 was the only gaming platform that displayed a year-over-year increase at 42%, becoming the fastest-growing console for the year. Microsoft also claims Xbox 360 to have experienced shortage of supply units in the month of December.
Furthermore, 6.2 billion USD were spent on Xbox 360’s retail making it the financial leader among any current generation consoles in 2010. An announcement by Microsoft accounts this success to the launch of Kinect and the unveiling of popular games like Fable III and Halo: Reach. It also claims over 50 million units of Xbox 360 sold worldwide since its inception with 30 million active Xbox Live members and 8 million Kinects sold in sixty days of its launch.
Microsoft’s home console recorded 1.9 million in sales figure in the month of December alone. Additionally, three of the top ten console titles, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Kinect Sports, were for Xbox 360 in the same month. Microsoft reportedly pulled units from January and February production lot to keep up with customer demands in the last month of 2010. It also experienced supply constraints in December in spite of the haul, and is anticipating out-of-supply situations in few upcoming months.
Gears of War 3, one of the most-awaited games for 2011, the all-new Kinect entertainment services such as Hulu Plus and Avatar Kinect among others that are scheduled to arrive this year, will only be expected to augment Xbox 360’s growth evermore.