Firstly, I have to take into account the figures on this site, as this is what I am basing this post on.

Okay... Microsoft projected that they would sell 10m 360's within the first 12 months of it's release.  This did not happen, although they attempted to flood the market with shipments of the console.  Anyway, around a month ago, Microsoft, adjusted their sales figures for this year up until the end of June.  They had originally anticipated that they would sell 15m 360's by the end of June 2007.  They downsized this projection to 12m.

We are now 5 weeks away from the end of June 2007 and the Xbox 360 has yet to break the infamous 10m barrier.

So what's happening?  Why has the 360 sales reduced so much?  Why has Microsoft's projection been so out?

It really will be a "brass neck" and "red face" for Microsoft when they do not make the 12m sales projection in 5 weeks time.  Going at this rate, they will be lucky to break the 10m barrier.

What does this do for the 360 over the course?  Yes, Halo 3 will be released in September and it will be huge for the system.  But does that mean, the sales of the 360 will be minimal until that happens?

If sales stay at the same rate, the Wii will overtake the 360 by the middle of August.  Which is quite a bit earlier than I originally thought.  I also think now that the 360 will only sell around 13m by the end of this year.

I wonder if the 360 and 360 Elite are counted as 2 different consoles? That would be the only thing I can think of as to why it isn't selling like M$ projected it.

wow... you need to adjust your facts... they had said 13-15 million by june... adjusting to 12 million was only a 1 million drop... the elite is constantly selling out (the availability on itrackr has been less than the wii).... This site always downgrades the 360 sales... if you trust it and have followed what they have posted on the front of the site you will see that the 360 has always taken 2 steps forward and then been nerfed its reached 9.7 million on several occasions and then dropped back to 9.6 or even 9.4... finally it seems like ioi is going to let it stay at 9.7 the wii on the other hand has consistently exceeded nintendo's own shipment figures on this site... I'm baffled by the estimates on this website and why it seems to try and keep the 360 from hitting 10 million... when I think it really has (even NPD has had the 360 sell almost 400k in 2 months in the US but the WW figures on this site has only gone up 200k) the 12 million they projected was shipped... and with the sales/shipments of the elite they should easily make that.

maybe not... but they could have easily shipped that many... if they had shipped 10.4 million by january.. shipping another 1.5 million is easy

maybe they scaled back the number because they decided not to do the price cut in the spring? Maybe they plan on announcing the price cut at E3 (in July) during their opening presentation...

if they had planned on a price drop in the spring (but because of Sony's price point/slow sales didn't have to) and gone through with it they probably would have easily exceeded 12 million during the spring... but if they put off the price drop until the summer, then they could not have expected to make those same sales figures...

i'll agree that they won't sell 12 million to end users by the end of June... but they definitely have sold that many to retailers, and if they announce the price drop at E3 they will sell at least 500k in the US that month.... (if not more, many people are waiting for a price drop)

another one accusing vgchartz being biased, zzz

dude, live with the facts, it ain't selling, OKAY.

I wonder if it has to do with the failure rate. Maybe all those broken 360's are being repaired, and injected back into the retail stream. If so, they wouldn't count as extra sales (?) - so maybe that impacts it.

Other than that, I have no idea what is happening to the 360. We all know its doing pretty badly in Japan (say 5k / week), and its selling around 40k-50k/week in the US - including the Elite. Maybe there are less people upgrading  than thought, or maybe they simply number in their thousands?

If we assume that Europe is selling around 30k/week (may be a stretch, given how badly the sales reports from some countries are??), that totals around 80k/week - worldwide. Which is about 350k/month.

According to VG's figures, the 360 had sold only just over 8m at the start of this year (many people had expected more, so the figures were adjusted downwards when the facts came out).

And since then, it has sold 1.7m in 5 months (i.e. close to 350k/month on average).

...

Another 5 weeks will have it sitting at approx 10.2m - assuming no significant changes in sales occur. Which may be close to 12m shipped - depending on orders for the Elite, etc.

(I don't think there is any doubt that the arrival of the PS3 has negatively impacted on the sales of the 360). 

It's easy to sell out with a very limited amount of consoles... (the Elite), the fact is the 360 is doing better than the PS3 easily but it is still underselling compared to predictions...

I think the 350k a month worldwide is stretching it, it's probably around 300 k worldwide monthly last month. In japan it's not 5k a week it's more like 2.5 k and less .

davygee, 12 million was their financial forecast for "sold to retail", not "sold to consumers" (as is proper for a financial statement), though Microsoft representatives tried to obfuscate the difference and use phrases like "in consumers' hands" when they are citing their forecast. MS sold 10.4 million units by December and 10.9 million by March. To reach 12 million they would have to sell 1.1 million units this quarter. That could work. eques judicii, If we assume that: - Microsoft is on track with their forecast and have sold 11.5 million units to retail - vgchartz is right about their estimate and 9.7 million units were sold to consumers That would mean that: - 1.8 million units are still on retail shelves. I think that would be healthy stock and very reasonable, so ioi's estimate does not sound too low at all.

Please tell me when NPD had XBox 360 was selling around 400k units in 2007? Cause it didn't, it didn't even get close. If I recall correctly the numbers were something like 290k for January (5 week month), 240k for February, 200k in March (another 5 week month) and around 175k in April. Since it is hardly selling in Japan (around 100k for the whole of 2007 so far?) the adjustments ioi had to make for the other region more or less offset much of the consoles sold in the US so far this year. But don't worry to much, I think most adjustments there have been made by now, so another month of sales should be enough to get it to the 10M mark.