Microsoft spins NPD figures – Did Xbox 360 outsell Wii and PS3?

Isn’t spin a wonderful thing? It can make even the most dire news seem fantastic. When it comes to the latest hardware sales figures, it means that Microsoft can manage to make everything look rosy in Xbox land when clearly it isn’t.

The official NPD figures for hardware sales in January showed that the Xbox 360 came a distant third to the Wii and PS3. The Wii sold 274,000 units during the month, the PS3 followed with 269,000 units and the Xbox 360 with 230,000 units sold.

According to Microsoft though, the “Xbox 360 experienced a record-setting holiday that has not slowed down in 2008″. Well, how is that possible I wonder, as it seems to me as though something has clearly slowed down, and that is sales of the Xbox 360 at the expense mainly of the Playstation 3.

For this we need to quote Microsoft’s press release in response to the sales figures for North America:

“Our retailers are telling us that Xbox 360 is selling as fast as they can restock, but due to this high demand, Xbox 360 is experiencing temporary shortages. We are working as quickly as we can to replenish inventory.”

So it’s hardware shortages! Ah, that explains it, although I haven’t actually heard of shortages of Xbox 360 consoles from any American retailer.

Microsoft then carry on their spinning tirade to try and justify the poor sales of late, by claiming that if you include hardware, software and accessories combined, the Xbox 360 platform came top of the charts, as well as a whole host of other facts and statistics to prove the point:

• In January, $297 million was spent on the Xbox 360 platform (hardware, software and accessories combined), compared to $244 million on Wii and $219 million on PS3. (U.S. NPD, January)
• $159 million was spent on Xbox 360 games alone in January compared to $131 million on Wii and $80 million for PS3. (U.S. NPD, January)
• Total customer spending on Xbox 360 life-to-date now reaches nearly $8.6 billion; this is more than double PS3 and Wii combined. (U.S. NPD, January)
• Six of the top 10 best selling games in January are on Xbox 360’s platform. (U.S. NPD, January)
• After five months on the market, “Halo 3” continues to make the top 10 best selling games list according to NPD with 127,000 additional units sold in January. (U.S. NPD, January)

I love the way Microsoft have used NPD’s own numbers against them, and this just goes to show statistics can be used to prove anything.

It’s true that Xbox 360 gamers are the most generous, consistently spending more on games and accessories than their PS3 or Wii owning brothers, but without the new influx of owners choosing to buy the Xbox 360 in the first place, this isn’t going to do the company much good in the long run.

Instead of spending time and effort trying to spin poor results, maybe Microsoft should be trying to work out a new strategy for getting Xbox 360s in more homes over the next few months, and stopping it falling in to third behind the Wii and PS3.

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