Hey guys, I thought I'd give you a little early preview as to who are some of the big winners of Black Friday in North America.  As most of you on here know I work for a certain massive gaming retailer.  Now I won't be giving out any hard numbers but I can' give you a quick breakdown of what scored big, and what didn't at least in relative terms.  By no means is this meant to be an exact prediction as to what WW numbers will be but I've seen the numbers and this is at the least a preview.

There were really 3 very big players in terms of hardware being moved.

The Mario 3D Land Flame Red 3DS bundle.  This little bad boy sold rediculous early numbers right out of the gate and was virtually sold out within the first 6 hours or so.  Honestly was a FAR larger boost to the 3DS than I had predicted, though shipment quantities for the bundle weren't massive.  Still expect to see some pretty amazing sales for Mario 3D land a nice boost to the 3DS.

The 4GB Xbox 360 Slim.  This did absolute wonders for MS.  The $150 price tag was a massive incentive and for the first time in a while this was the best selling sku for the Xbox 360 at retail.  Shipments the weeks prior were massive, and so were the sales.

The PS3 Holiday bundle.  Expect to see a pretty substantial rise for LBP2 and Ratchet and Clank all 4 One.  The holiday bundle sold through on retail today, while not at the rate as the two mentioned above it was certainly a nice hardware mover for Sony and the PS3.

Some other hardware that saw some nice success are the Zelda 3DS bundle, Kinect Holiday bundle, 250GB Holiday 360 bundle and the Blue Wii.  All had pretty strong sales across the board with the Zelda bundle not quite able to sell as well as its Mario conterpart but still very nicely.  Kinect smashed it, it really does seem the key to Kinect is the holidays, expect a HUGE bump.  The X360 Holiday bundle has been selling decent the past few weeks and got another bump as well this week, though didn't sell as well as the stand alone 4GB model.  The Blue Wii while not under my retail I've seen some estimates and it appears to have had a strong boost for the Wii.  Not sure which will sell more this week between Wii and PS3 but should be close.

The Blue Wii is sold out at Walmart and at Walmart.com

I'm aware of that and probably had a bigger boost than the Holiday PS3 bundle, but remember this is me talking about MY retailer not all of them.  That being said, do not expect the Wii to beat the 360 this week, its not happening.  Should be 360 in first by a comfortable margin then Wii with PS3 slighly behind it.

So your preview from your retail store says X360 sold great, PS3 and Wii sold well. Wow, thanks for the info, i don't think anyone knew that at all.

I think i'll just wait for the actual sites preview/prelim numbers though...

Lol I'm far higher than Store level

Trust me these are accurate as to MY retailer.  I'm not making any claims however as to how any other retailers sold.

Nice, so MS have seen a $150 360 sells amazingly, They'd do well to have it at that price for December tbh.

What about Zelda and Halo overall?

Zelda smashed it, did seriously amazing.  Halo not so much.  Don't get me wrong it'll have a nice launch and fairly decent legs but for a Halo game fairly dissapointing sales.  Don't expect it to ever outsell Halo 3:ODST.  Though for a remake its done exceptionally well.

Yeah we have 630k for US sales, so it is timid for Halo. I think however it's prime bundle material next holiday.

Oh really?  I hadn't seen Vgchartz estimate yet but that sounds like a pretty reliable number from what I've seen.

Pretty much what I saw @ Walmart last night and Best Buy today... 360 4GB / Kinect bundles were definitely the big winners across the board. The 3DS bundles flew out the door too, but there were many standalone 3DSs at all stores still sitting on the shelves. PS3 $199 bundle was gone in all stores as well, but most had plenty of standalone or $299 UC3 bundles left.

I think we'll see another huge week of sales the week before Xmas since it falls on a Sunday this year, so expect a full week of deals from retailers prior to it.