Xbox AU starts a rush:

Saturday, March 16,
INITIAL Microsoft Xbox sales have exceeded expectations, with many rushing to buy the video game console to play non-stop over the weekend.

Thousands lined up to purchase the $649 machine just after midnight yesterday, and stores reported interest strong all day.

Regional director of Xbox Alan Bowman said the first rush would probably ease up by the weekend.

"We were expecting Thursday and Friday to be very big retail days, as people will buy the Xbox to get home on the weekend and play it for two straight days," he said.

He said initial sales figures would be calculated by next Monday, although the first response has "exceeded expectations".

"While we know the Xbox development and sales project is a marathon, not a sprint, we have had huge interest here already and we hope to sell more than 100,000 consoles in the first three months after launch," he said.

Retailers have reported strong sales, with midnight openings at Grace Bros, Toys R Us and **** Smith Electronics PowerHouse stores proving highly successful.

"We had a couple of hundred people coming to each of our stores for the launch. We\'re happy with the sales so far," said **** Smith spokeswoman Nicola Rutzou.

Toys R Us reported strong pre-sales, with many customers arriving at midnight to collect their new consoles and games.

Grace Bros would not release figures for Xboxes sold, but the response was said to be "very good".

Microsoft need strong sales this week to secure the future of Xbox in Australia, which traditionally has not supported three video game consoles.

Experts predict the expanding Australian games market, currently worth $500 million, will double within a year and be able to host three game consoles.

In the US where Xbox was launched in mid-November, 1.5 million consoles had been sold in the six weeks to the end of the year.

Link: http://www.xboxs.com/XboxAu/cgi-bin/news/fullnews.cgi?newsid1016266175,36747,

"While we know the Xbox development and sales project is a marathon, not a sprint, we have had huge interest here already and we hope to sell more than 100,000 consoles in the first three months after launch," he said.




wow, 100k.. the ps2 sells that much in japan in 2 weeks
let alone the ps2 is about 2 years old in japan.. and the xbox is brand new.

What about europe?

WOW! 100K:laughing:

pstwo,

Thanks for the info, but I have to ask, why do you keep posting this stuff here knowing that you will end up with the standard responses?

Just curious.

Ace

Originally posted by Ace
pstwo,

Thanks for the info, but I have to ask, why do you keep posting this stuff here knowing that you will end up with the standard responses?

Just curious.

Ace

 The only reason I stil post is because there is still open minded people who want to see Xbox topics.  I\'m too old for that kind of crap.  

Please, any marketing guy is gonna get turned on when their product sells well. Whether it be a dozen or a million, they will say that this has to be the best days of their life...and life does go on. People are gonna realize that the gamers in the USA/Japan/UK aren\'t lying about the lack of AAA games for X-box, there just isn\'t any excuse.

Originally posted by tHe GaMe
WOW! 100K:laughing:

Dude, don\'t be a d!ck, we are talking about a country with 21 Million people here, not 280 Million like the US...

Originally posted by ##RaCeR##


Dude, don\'t be a d!ck, we are talking about a country with 21 Million people here, not 280 Million like the US...

Originally posted by pstwo


 The only reason I stil post is because there is still open minded people who want to see Xbox topics.  I\'m too old for that kind of crap.  

Your a great poster pstwo and keep up the good work.  

Hey is MS only wants 100k then it\'s good for them--they never counted on Europe, they didn\'t advertise, they didn\'t price match.  This is exactly what they expected and published and still you bash them Chrono.  You really need a life that doesn\'t so closely resemble my Grandmother\'s--she\'s constantly crass and irrational too.

Dudes, they project 100k in AUSTRALIA ONLY!!! There will be 100k units available for the launch period till June in AUS!!!

Remember, I went to the XBOX training with work. They said 100k units for AUSTRALIA only.

[Bobs_Hardware]

Australia is a different market to Europe, and 100,000 in 3 months is good  

Originally posted by ##RaCeR##
Dudes, they project 100k in AUSTRALIA ONLY!!! There will be 100k units available for the launch period till June in AUS!!!

Remember, I went to the XBOX training with work. They said 100k units for AUSTRALIA only.

yeah and they will only ever sell 1000 of them on launch daY

Originally posted by ooseven


yeah and they will only ever sell 1000 of them on launch daY

Not to burst your bubble, but thats probably all that they sold PS2 wise when it launched.

Australia is a very different market. We don\'t have massive populous like Japan and USA, yet our economic position is much better to that of the UK.

And remember, when we say EUROPE, its THE WHOLE OF EUROPE, so 100k consoles for one country is pretty damn good I say, considering they only project to sell 500-1million consoles in the next month in Europe, which also includeds Australia.

Originally posted by Watchdog
Hey is MS only wants 100k then it\'s good for them--they never counted on Europe, they didn\'t advertise, they didn\'t price match.  This is exactly what they expected and published and still you bash them Chrono.  You really need a life that doesn\'t so closely resemble my Grandmother\'s--she\'s constantly crass and irrational too.

Um... Australia isn\'t part of Europe.

Besides they do count on Europe. They do advertise. Quite heavily too. Hell, they have an Xbox only TV channel just for Denmark! Of course MS doesn\'t expect to sell 10 million units in three days but it\'s a market like US and Japan. Just give it time.