Microsoft’s Xbox Sales Beat Wii, PS3 in February on ‘BioShock’
March 11, 2010, 11:00 PM ESTBy Pavel Alpeyev and Adam Satariano
March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 beat Nintendo Co.’s Wii and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 last month to become the best-selling video-game console in the U.S. for the first time in more than two years, helped by the release of the “BioShock 2” shooting title.
Microsoft sold 422,000 Xbox 360s in February, up 8 percent from a year earlier, researcher NPD Group Inc. said yesterday. Nintendo, which has said it experienced supply shortages, sold 397,900 units, a decline of 47 percent. Sony sold 360,100 PS3s, a 30 percent increase.
“BioShock 2” went on sale Feb. 10 for the Xbox 360 and PS3, highlighting the importance of hit titles for hardware sales. Microsoft, which last held the top slot in September 2007, according to NPD, is introducing the “Natal” motion-sensing device this year-end to attract exclusive titles for its player.
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s “BioShock 2,” set in an undersea dystopia, sold about 750,000 units, of which 75 percent were for Xbox 360, NPD said. Nintendo’s “New Super Mario Bros” slipped to the second place in February with sales of 555,600 units, followed by Activision Blizzard Inc.’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” for the Xbox, the researcher said. Sony’s exclusive PS3 title “Heavy Rain” ranked 10th with 219,300 units.
Microsoft closed 0.7 percent higher at $29.18 in New York trading yesterday. Sony fell 1 percent to 3,405 yen as of 12:39 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while Nintendo lost 0.3 percent to 27,710 yen in Osaka.
Sony’s ‘Move’
Kyoto, western Japan-based Nintendo’s Wii dominates this generation of game consoles with more than 67.5 million units sold, compared with more than 39 million Xbox 360s and 33 million PS3s worldwide.
Sony earlier this week demonstrated its “Move” motion- sensing controller for the PS3, aiming to narrow Wii’s market lead by appealing to casual users. The black controller, resembling Wii’s wand with a colored ball at the top, will cost less than $100 including a sensor-camera and game, the company said.
Publishers making titles for the system include Activision, Electronic Arts Inc., Ubisoft Entertainment SA, Walt Disney Co. and Square Enix Holdings Co., Sony said. The Tokyo-based company’s games such as “Little Big Planet,” “Move Party” and “Sports Champions” work with the device.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft plans to introduce the Natal controller-free system that lets players operate Xbox games with body motions instead of pressing buttons or waving a device. Nintendo introduced the Wii motion-controller in 2006.
Industry Revenue Declines
Nintendo’s February slide, combined with a 15 percent drop in sales of game software, resulted in a 15 percent drop in industry revenue to $1.26 billion last month, NPD said.
“I had expected the industry to perform somewhat better,” Anita Frazier, an analyst with Port Washington, New York-based NPD, said in a statement.
Nintendo has been experiencing supply shortages after a record-setting December, when it sold 3.81 million units, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said last month. The last time Wii didn’t hold the top spot was in September, when Sony led following a $100 price cut.
--Editors: Jonathan Annells, Suresh Seshadri
To contact the reporter on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net; Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net.
