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17:05 September 14th, 2007

Last gasp for original Xbox?

Posted by: Scott Hillis
Tags: Uncategorized

Original Microsoft XboxWhen Microsoft introduced the Xbox 360 in November of 2005, it killed off the original Xbox, a decision that contrasted with Sony’s strategy to keep supporting the PlayStation 2 even as it threw most of its marketing muscle behind the new PlayStation 3.

That meant the Xbox fell quickly off the sales charts and video game makers stopped producing titles for the machine in order to focus on the Xbox 360.

So it was a bit of a surprise to see the latest NPD data for video game sales for the month of August. It turns out that Electronic Arts figured there were still enough people playing the original Xbox to justify making a version of “Madden NFL 08″ for it.

It looks like it was a smart move. According to NPD numbers provided by Microsoft, the Xbox version of “Madden” sold 122,000 copies, making it the 11th best-selling game for the month. That beat “Madden” for Nintendo’s Wii, which sold almost 116,000 copies.

Oh, and it looks like there are still a few big black-and-green boxes trickling out of warehouses: Microsoft sold no fewer than 80 Xboxes in August.

(Photo of original Xbox from Microsoft’s Xbox.com site)

6 comments so far

ive been saying it all along. please support the O.G. xbox, think of all the $ microsoft has lost by not keeping it around until the end of its lifecycle. tis a shame microsoft.

- Posted by the1ej

I bet the ps one sold more than 80 consoles in the month of august.

- Posted by Dak is back

I doubt that Microsoft only sold 80 Xboxes this August. If it’s supposed to be a low number, I’d rather place my bets on 80,000.

Or maybe MICROSOFT sold 80 Xboxes, but the stores sold a lot more than that.

- Posted by Erik

I doubt that Microsoft only sold 80 Xboxes this August. If its supposed to be a low number, Id rather place my bets on 80,000.

Unlikely. They stopped manufacturing the Xbox, so all that’s left in stores are leftoevers, so there probably isn’t a whole lot of them left.

- Posted by ender003

[...] homebrew, à linstar de XBMC. On ne sera donc pas surpris d’apprendr e par cet article d’un blog Reuters que la console de Microsoft ne s’est vendu qu’à 80 exemplaires au mois d’août [...]

- Posted by INFOLC, le blog… » Archive du blog » La Xbox en peau de chagrin

http://xbox.ign.com/index/previews.html
Take a look at how many games came out this year, that is the reason the sales were not good for the game. Why stick around with a platform that is not producing any games.

- Posted by Colin

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