Record Black Friday Sales Keep Xbox 360 the Top-Selling Console in November

It’s been a heck of a few days for Xbox 360.

Earlier this week, Microsoft unveiled a new dashboard for Xbox LIVE designed to transform the way people consume digital entertainment on their TV. The update brings voice control through the simplicity of Kinect and the intelligence of Bing, and rolls out the first group of new, custom applications from world-leading TV and entertainment content providers on Xbox LIVE.

And today, Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 has closed another impressive month, strengthening its position in the current-generation console market with record sales of 1.7 million units in the U.S. in November, the only current-generation console to sell more than one million units, and nearly double the second-place console.

November 2011 highlights from the NPD Group, an independent market research firm, include:

· Holding 49 percent share of the overall current-generation console market, Xbox 360 sold 1.7 million units in November, maintaining the number-one console spot in the U.S. for 2011. This marks the ninth consecutive month Xbox 360 has had more than 40 percent of the current-generation console market share, and eleventh straight month the Xbox was the top selling console in the U.S.

· Xbox 360 unit sales grew 23 percent year over year in November.

· Total retail spend on the Xbox 360 platform in November (hardware, software and accessories) reached $1.4 billion, the most for any console in the U.S.

· During the month of November, Xbox 360 held four of the top 10 console game titles including: “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,” “Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “Assassin’s Creed: Revelations” and “Battlefield 3”.

Black Friday week played a significant part in the console’s success this month, and marked the biggest seven-day sales period in Xbox history with Xbox 360 selling more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. Of that number, more than 800,000 were sold within a period of 24 hours. Microsoft also saw continued demand for Kinect for Xbox 360, selling more than 750,000 Kinects in the U.S. during Black Friday week, according to internal data.

Posted by Jeff Meisner
Editor, The Official Microsoft Blog