Xbox 360 sales fall by 50% in Q1

Such has been the fantastic and ongoing success of Xbox 360 in the last few years that the industry can’t help but be worried when the market leader posts such disappointing numbers.

Microsoft has reported that total Xbox 360 hardware sales hit 1.4m units shipped for the quarter ending March 31st – that’s down just under 50 per cent year-on-year.

Revenue for the platform fell 33 per cent to $584m.

Overall Xbox 360 accounted for around a third of Entertainment & Devices’ $1.6bn revenue for the period, though that was not enough to stop the business unit posting a loss of $339m. In the sale period in 2011 it reported profits of $210m.

Note, of course, that none of this has stopped Xbox 360 being the best selling console in the US for 15 months in a row.

And it’s not all doom and gloom – nine-month sales of the console stand at 11.9m units shipped, which is the same as in the comparable nine months the year before.

Interestingly, R&D costs climbed 35 per cent in the period – undoubtedly linked to Microsoft’s work on Xbox 360’s successor.