PlayStation 2, Sony's video game console, leidt de verkooprace met de concurrentie in de VS, in de weken voor kerst. Dit werd bekendgemaakt in een rapport van Credit Suisse First Boston, opgesteld door NPD, schrijft C|Net. In het vierde kwartaal werden er tot 8 december totaal 1,4 miljoen stuks verkocht in de VS. Microsofts' Xbox was goed voor 934.000 stuks en Nintendo's GameCube ging tot 8 december 615.000 keer over de toonbank. Daarbij moeten we wel aantekenen dat de Xbox pas op 15 november debuteerde en de GameCube drie dagen daarna. Volgens het rapport zit de Xbox goed op schema, om Microsofts' target van 1,5 miljoen verkochte units voor eind december van dit jaar te halen:
"We're really happy with the sales so far," James Bernard, Xbox product manager for Microsoft, told CNET News.com on Tuesday. "When you compare our first few weeks to Sony's first few weeks with the PlayStation 2 last year, we're way ahead," he said, referring to Sony's lingering supply supply problems with the console when it was introduced last November.
Sony, which cited more recent NPD data to tally sales of some 1.5 million PS2s from Thanksgiving week on, credited its lead in large part to hot new software titles such as "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "Metal Gear Solid 2.""Clearly, data for the first month of the holiday sales season indicates that the entire PlayStation family of products will soundly outsell all competitors combined, despite the heralded introduction of new game consoles during this important month," Jack Tretton, senior vice president for Sony Computer Entertainment of America, said in a statement.
Nintendo representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.
