PS3 Ships 1M In US, Wii Sells 1.2M In US, Xbox 360 Sells 10.4M

A few days ago, Lazard Capital's analyst Colin Sebastian estimated that Nintendo's Wii had beaten their earlier 1.2 million sales estimates, and that Sony's PlayStation 3 might have sold just 700,000 units. Well, we now suspect that at least one of these figures was... how should we put this... wrong! Although Sony's supplies of PS3s were indeed lacking (to say the least), the company claims to have eventually shipped 1 million units across North America, in the six weeks following the console's launch from November 17, 2006. And mostly all of them were not only shipped, buy also sold out - thus making Lazard's 700,000 units figure somewhat of an underestimation.

If Sony's claims (reported by GI.biz) are accurate, that would mean that the PlayStation 3 actually hit the 1 million mark faster than both the PS2 and the original PlayStation.

"SCEA went to great lengths to help meet demand for PS3, including airlifting systems into North America on a weekly basis to ensure a steady stream of units were available to consumers throughout the holiday season," said SCEA boss Jack Tretton.

On top of that, it now seems that Nintendo's advantage in terms of sold Wii consoles isn't all that crushing anymore. At least not in North America; and assuming that at least the "1.2 million Wiis sold" estimation was accurate to some degree. In any case, pretty soon we should have a clear picture of how well each console sold in North America last year, once the official NPD charts are made public later this week.

In the meantime, GI.biz also reports that Microsoft has managed to shift an impressive 10.4 million units of the Xbox 360 console to date, and that Epic Games's Gears of War has sold over 2.7 million copies - making it "a Halo-like franchise", according to Robbie Bach's statements from CES in Las Vegas this week. GamesIndustry also notes the following facts about the Xbox 360:

"The console is now available in 37 different countries, with 160 titles on shelves, with Bach promising the machine will benefit from 300 games by the end of 2007."

How long will it take for Sony and Nintendo to catch up? Well, why don't we ask that question again in a year.

UPDATE: Yet another report from GI.biz brings word that Nintendo's Wii has sold nearly 1 million units in Japan so far, more than twice of what Sony's PlayStation 3 sold in the same territory.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)