Sales

The Xbox 360 began production only 69 days before launch.As a result, Microsoft was not able to supply enough systems to meet initial consumer demand in Europe or North America.Many potential customers were not able to purchase a console at launch. Forty thousand units appeared on eBay during the initial week of release; this was 10% of the total supply. By year's end, Microsoft had shipped 1.5 million units, including 900,000 in North America, 500,000 in Europe, and 100,000 in Japan.
At E3 in May 2006, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft would have a head start of 10 million units by the time Sony and Nintendo entered the market.Microsoft later specified that goal and estimated shipments of 10 million units by the end of 2006.
Cumulative sales from the system's launch until June 30, 2007 were predicted to reach 12 million units, down from 13 to 15 million units estimated earlier. Being released one year ahead of its competitors, the Xbox 360 was the market leader throughout the first half of 2007; however, on September 12, 2007, it was reported by the Financial Times that the Xbox 360 had been surpassed by the Wii in terms of worldwide home console sales.
On October 4, 2007, after the launch of Halo 3, Microsoft stated that Xbox 360 sales had more than doubled compared to the previous average.According to the NPD Group, the Xbox 360 outsold the Wii for the month of September in the United States, helped in part by the spike in sales seen after the launch of Halo 3, which sold 3.3 million copies in the US in a 12-day period.The Xbox had sales of 528,000 units for September, while the Wii had sales of 501,000 units.
However, despite these sales figures, Microsoft's gaming division is losing money. Through 2005, the Xbox gaming division had lost over $4 billion. However, Microsoft expects the console will start making money in 2008.The losses are due to the market strategy of selling consoles below cost in order to obtain market saturation and gain profits on software and peripherals that have a much higher profit margin. Also notable is that Microsoft has taken a charge of $1 billion dollars on its June 2007 Income Statement to account for the cost of replacing bricked Xbox 360s.
In Europe, the Xbox 360 sold 2 million units in 2006 and 1.9 million in 2007 according to estimates by Electronic Arts. In 2007, the Xbox 360 had sold 4.62 million units in the US according to the NPD Group, and 257,841 in Japan, according to Enterbrain.
On February 13, 2008, Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 suffered shortages in the US in January 2008, possibly continued into February. Prior to the release of the NPD Group's video game statistics for January 2008, the Xbox 360 has been in second place behind the Wii in US sales in most months since the Wii and PS3 were released, according to data by the NPD Group. On May 14, 2008, Microsoft announced that 10 million Xbox 360s had been sold and that it was the "first current generation gaming console" to surpass the 10 million figure in the US. In the US, the Xbox 360 was the leader in current-generation home console sales until June 2008, when it was surpassed by the Wii which was released a year later than the Xbox 360; the Xbox 360 has sold 11.6 million units as of November 1, 2008, according to the NPD Group.
In the first seven months of 2008, the Xbox 360 has sold 154,000 units in Canada, being outsold by the PlayStation 3 and Wii;the Xbox 360 has sold a total of 870,000 units in Canada as of August 1, 2008. In the United Kingdom, the Xbox 360 has sold 2.3 million units as of September 2008, according to GfK Chart-Track.In Japan, the Xbox 360 has sold 748,992 units as of October 1, 2008, according to Famitsu. In Europe, the Xbox 360 has sold seven million units as of November 20, 2008, according to Microsoft.