X box or Game Cube?

December 20, 2002 - Xbox executives can pop a bottle of champagne. Apparently, people are diggin' the Xbox. The proof doesn't come from some over-enthusiastic PR spin or anyone's personal numbers. All you need do is take a look at the numbers and you'll see that Xbox is in the midst of crushing the GameCube.
According to the NPD Group, one of the most respected market research firms in the industry, November marked the seventh consecutive month Xbox outsold GameCube in terms of hardware and has outsold GameCube in software in all thirteen months of its existence. Selling nearly 500,000 consoles in November, Xbox nearly doubled its sales numbers from October. Xbox consoles have edged GameCube by 20% in total sales, a considerable gap, especially when you look at the great first-party titles Nintendo has managed to release this year.

In November, Xbox saw it's second best month of software sales to date, with 2.4 million units selling. That's 10% more than the GameCube, but still far below the might of PS2. In terms of GameCube versus Xbox, though, Microsoft's console has sold 34% more software overall than GameCube. The Xbox also maintains the highest attach rate to date for a console that's thirteen months old, with 4.7 games per unit sold.

Further proof of Microsoft's growing dominance over GameCube comes when comparing the two bundle offers. Microsoft's Xbox bundle that comes with Sega GT 2002 and Jet Set Radio Future has outsold the GameCube Mario bundle by 335,000 units or 131%. However, it should be noted that the GameCube bundle is not nearly as widely available, which could contribute to the wide gap.

The GameCube is often saddled with piss-poor ports of multi-platform games and it shows in terms of sales. The Xbox has managed 58% greater third-party sales than GameCube according to Microsoft.

Though Microsoft has yet to come close to the PS2 in terms of installed base, the big MS can take comfort in knowing their online programs has bested PS2 from the get-go. Comparing their first month of sales, Xbox Live outsold PS2 Network Adapters by 14% and the three major Live titles (Ghost Recon, MechAssault, and Unreal Championship) sold over 300,000 copies combined in just the last half of November and managed an astounding attach rate of 80%.

With far bigger titles on the horizon for Microsoft next year and very few big franchises left in Nintendo's bag for 2003, it could be an even merrier X-Mas for Microsoft a year from now. Of course, we'll be back to let you know how this little ol' console war is turning out.