Xboxist

Xbox 360 Struggles as Hardware Sales Decline

The NPD group has published the monthly hardware and software sales figures for July. Last month in the United States, the PS3 sold more units than the Xbox 360. Despite recent price cuts, Microsoft was not able to keep up with the runaway success of Sony’s console, which was bolstered by recent high-profile game releases like Metal Gear Solid 4. To make matters worse, even the struggling PSP managed to outsell the Xbox 360 in July.

Undoubtedly, the built-in BluRay drive on the PS3 has become a factor in hardware sales, as more consumers embrace the higher definition digital movie format. Will the Xbox 360 ever be able to reclaim its position in the US? Perhaps a more significant price-cut or a major exclusive can turn the tide, but we suspect that the PS3 will stay on top in the sales charts from now on.

What’s that you say? We forgot about the Wii? With the amount of consoles that Nintendo is selling these days, it isn’t even a fair fight. Both the DS and the Wii smoked the competition in July with over half a million units of each machine sold. We are not sure who is buying up all of these machines, particularly since there hasn’t been a major blockbuster game released recently. Wii Fit probably has something to do with it, having racked up sales of 370,000 copies in July.

July 2008 Hardware Sales Chart: