Think any console will sell over 1 million WW in one week this holiday?

[Sullla]

Dodece, the 360 is indeed doing really well right now. After a bit of a shaky first half of 2007, the console has really had a strong showing in the last couple of months. It's going to have a very strong showing in December, no doubt about it.

But there's a world of difference between those factors and selling a million units - a MILLION! - in a single week. That would be equal to 8.5% of all 360 sales, ever! Craziness. Look at the numbers that TWRoO posted from last year. There was only a single week that the 360 even broke 500k, and that was the week right before Christmas. 558k isn't even remotely close to a million; it's barely even half of that number. The 360 is probably going to sell a bit better this year than last year, but DOUBLE last year's sales?! Absolutely no chance. (Don't forget that the competition from Nintendo and Sony is a LOT stronger this year than last year too!)

In a larger sense, I think many on this site are getting a bit caught up in the 360's current success, and over-estimating its holiday performance as a result. We all knew that Halo was going to be huge, but what everyone underestimated (and still underestimates) is just how big of a factor sports games have played in the 360's recent success. The 360 has clearly become *THE* sports console in the American market, taking over that role from the PS2. Just look at the software sales for this week; half of the 360's top 10 games are sports titles. And pretty much all of the major sports releases come out in the early Fall. You have:

American football/college football
Basketball/college basketball
Soccer
Hockey

Even the racing sports games come out in August (NASCAR)! Combine all those sports games with titles like Halo and Bioshock, and you're looking at what is by far the best two months of the year for the 360. And Microsoft cut the price in August too! No wonder sales are up so much.

My point is that 125k units/week in America is very much NOT the usual average for the 360, but a temporary boosted effect from so many major titles releasing in the same short period. Somewhere around half that number is probably more realistic (which is still quite good). Hitting 1 million sales in a single week would require increasing "normal" weekly sales (probably ~100k worldwide) by a factor of ten. The holidays are a very busy time of the year - but not THAT busy!