A visual history of gaming hardware sales

Who doesn’t love a good set of sales figures? Every month they provide fanboys with ammunition to defend their brand as well as a number-crunching session for those with analytical minds. Whatever your reason for enjoying sales figures, you can’t doubt their ability to engross.

We all know the usual stuff that can be pulled from data: who sold the most of this product category? How much did Company A sell relative to Company B and C? How much more than Company A / B / C sell over last month or year? Etcetera, etcetera. But if you read between the lines, that’s where you’ll find some real gems.

Xbox 360

• Xbox 360 sales in the first 12 months (November 2005 – October 2006): 2,892,000 units with an average of 241,000 units sold per month.
• Xbox 360 sales in the second year (November 2006 – October 2007): 4,199,900 units with an average of 349,991 units sold per month.
• Biggest sales month: December 2010 with 1,860,000 units.
• 7 months with over one million units sold.
• Fewest units sold: May 2007 with 155,000 units.

Nintendo Wii

• Nintendo Wii sales in the first 12 months (November 2006 – October 2007): 5,038,600 units with an average of 419,883 units sold per month.
• Nintendo Wii sales in the second year (November 2007 – October 2008): 8,312,000 units with an average of 692,666 units sold per month
• Biggest sales month: December 2009 with 3,810,000 units.
• 7 months with over one million units sold.
• Fewest units sold: April 2011 with 172,000 units.

PlayStation 3

• PlayStation 3 sales in the first 12 months (November 2006 – October 2007): 1,964,200 units with an average of 163,683 units sold per month.
• PlayStation 3 sales in the second year (November 2007 – October 2008): 3,533,500 units with an average of 294,458 units sold per month.
• Biggest sales month: December 2009 with 1,360,000 units.
• 2 months with over one million units sold.
• Fewest units old: August 2007 with 13600 units.
• It took the PS3 38 months (that’s over three years) to have a month in which sales surpassed 1 million units. It took the Xbox 360 and the Wii 14 months to reach that milestone.

*Charts are my own

2005-2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011 (until November)