Nintendo 3DS

It’s widely known that Microsoft at some point during its early days breaking into the games console business considered a handheld device to compete with Nintendo’s then-current Game Boy Advance …
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The NPD Group released sales figures for the month of September, and there are a number of surprises.

First, the PlayStation 3 has outsold the Xbox 360 for the first time in 32 months. While this isn’t necessarily a major turning point, it is still a milestone for Sony’s once beleaguered system. Released later than its competition and at a significantly higher price, the PS3 long struggled to make headway against the Xbox 360 in North America. That extra year allowed Microsoft to establish an early lead and to later widen that gap through studio acquisitions, exclusivity agreements and some very smart targeting of specific developers and publishers.

High-profile, big name releases like BioShock, Mass Effect and The Orange Box all hit the Xbox 360 first. These were massive, massive titles that could truly justify the “Only on Xbox 360” stamp, and if they were to appear on PS3, it was anywhere from two months to a year later. Microsoft also successfully lured away the single biggest former third-party PlayStation-exclusive franchise: Final Fantasy.

Unfortunately, there was little Sony could do to stop the bleeding. It had to focus on making the PS3 profitable. This meant lowering production costs and resisting the calls for significant price cuts. The past year or two, we’ve seen the strategy starting to work, with the system starting to turn around. That said, this generation has been tough for the PS3, so it’s nice to see the September sales bump.

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Sales data from the NPD Group shows that Nintendo’s 3DS outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3 in August 2013. This is the second summer month in which the 3DS …
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With E3 just around the corner and rumors of a new Xbox peeking out from under the bed, questions are popping up on whether or not the inevitable new generation of Xbox consoles will include backwards compatibility with the 360’s hundreds of Xbox Live Arcade titles. Will it happen, and does it have to happen for players to take the new system seriously?

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