It looks like both the PS3 and Xbox 360 have missed their sales target of 1 and 10 million sales respectively for Christmas 2006, with figures from nexgenwars.com showing the Xbox 360 selling about 9.5 million units and the PS3 selling about 860,000 units by the end of 2006. According to estimates from the market research NPD Group, between November and December, the Xbox 360 sold around 2 millions units and the PS3 sold around 750,000 units.
Nintendo has much better than some may have expected with its Wii innovative motion sensing controller, resulting in its console being sold out in most stores and still near impossible to find, despite many large stores managing to now build up a limited stock of the PS3. The Wii managed to sell 1.8 million units since its November launch, way outselling the PS3 and closely behind the Xbox 360. It probably would have sold many more units, possibly outselling the Xbox 360 hadn't there been a lack of supply.
Sony's Blu-ray diode shortage and costly manufacturing problems have seriously held back its sales, not to mention its poor selection of software. When Microsoft launched its Xbox 360, it decided to stick with DVD-ROM drive for storage and offered HD DVD movie playback as an optional add-on purchase, unlike the PS3 where consumers were forced to purchase it with the costly Blu-ray drive built in. One likely reason for Xbox 360's sales success was its ability to provide ample stock to retail stores, resulting in more Xbox 360's than Wiis and PS3s stocked on the shelves. Even though Sony aimed to push the PS3 as a Blu-ray movie player and Microsoft pushed its Xbox 360 as a home entertainment centre, interestingly the lack of even DVD movie playback on the Wii did not put buyers off, likely due to most consumers buying game consoles for one main purpose - to play games on!
