Top videogame seller moves 1 million units in six weeks
By George T. Chronis 12/28/2006
DEC. 28 | Microsoft Entertainment received an early Christmas present—the Gears of War action game for the Xbox 360. Within six weeks after its Nov. 7 release, the Microsoft title had amassed sales of more than 1 million units domestically and 2 million total units worldwide.
Gears of War gathered the largest number of pre-orders for any Microsoft title since Halo 2 for Xbox sold 2.5 million units in 24 hours during the fall of 2004. The solid debut performance of Gears of War gives the Xbox 360 its first major hit during the critical holiday sales season and has boosted the number of paid registrations to the Xbox Live online service by 50% since the game’s launch.
David Cole, president of research firm DFC Intelligence, said the performance of Gears of War shows that the Xbox 360 is now a solid platform that can support big unit sales for the right title. He still questions, however, whether Gears of War’s success is enough to maintain consumer demand for the Xbox 360 well into 2007 when supplies of the newer PlayStation 3 and Wii become more plentiful.
“The issue with Gears of War is does it expand the 360’s appeal?” Cole said. “I think the challenge Microsoft faces is to expand beyond that core action, first-person-shooter audience. I am not sure if Gears of War does that. It may have got some people that were sitting on the fence waiting for Halo 3, but I think it’s mainly a core Microsoft audience that’s buying the game.”
Cole told VB that a more telling indication of how broad the Xbox 360’s consumer appeal will be ongoing sales of Viva Pinata, released Nov. 9 and backed by an animated kids series on TV. The game is Microsoft’s main attempt to expand the Xbox 360 to new audiences, but it did not rank among the Top 20 titles for November tallied by the NPD Group.
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