Many would say our current generation consoles are at the end of their life span, but the numbers seem to reflect quite the opposite.
Sometime last week, Microsoft announced the sales number coming in at $6.7 billion dollars in total for 2011. This includes games, accessories and actual hardware. Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, which includes the Xbox division, managed to pull in $4.24 billion in the final quarter of 2011 alone, up 15 percent from the previous year.
These numbers could be explained from major holiday releases and the more recent hardware upgrades but Microsoft has taken it further and broken down the figures for us. The Xbox 360 console itself, sold 8.2 million units during the same quarter which is up 27 percent from the same quarter last year when both the Kinect and new Slim models were available.
With numbers still on the rise can Microsoft justify pushing a new console release earlier than expected? A new console too early will ultimately hurt potential sales. Many consumers wait until price cuts to purchase the console when it is at a more fitting price for them. As the figures show, this may very well be the case here. Can we expect to see a final price cut on the newest models or has the console reached the right equilibrium to drive sales up even higher?
The numbers don’t lie, the current 360 is still in high demand.
Source:
Microsoft sells 8.2 million Xbox 360s in holiday quarter - GameSpot.com
Xbox 360 Sales Still Climbing 
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