Hasta La Gadget!

Black Friday and the days leading up to it were undoubtedly good for a lot of companies, but Microsoft had a pretty good week itself. The company announced today that it sold 750,000 Xbox 360s in the US during the week of Black Friday, which is technically counted as November 18-23. Selling nearly 1 million consoles in just six days is definitely impressive, especially when that console is six years old and will likely be replaced by new hardware soon.

Nintendo announced yesterday that it sold 400,000 Wii U consoles in the US during its first week (which was November 18-25), but it’s a bit unfair to compare those sales to the Xbox 360′s for a couple of different reasons. Remember, the Wii U suffered from stock shortages, so it’s possible that Nintendo would have sold more Wii Us if it had product to ship. We should also consider the fact that Microsoft was offering some pretty attractive deals on Xbox 360 bundles, whereas Nintendo wasn’t offering discounts on the Wii U since it’s a brand new machine.

In any case, the week of Black Friday was pretty great for Microsoft, at least as it relates to the Xbox 360. Microsoft also said today that sales of Halo 4 exceeded expectations during the week of Black Friday, though sadly didn’t give any specific sales numbers. We’re still waiting on those numbers, in fact – Microsoft hasn’t had any problem gloating about the amount of money Halo 4 has pulled in since launching earlier in the month, but has yet to talk actual sales numbers.

Earlier today, Microsoft told us that it has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses since the new OS launched last month. Add that to the company’s previous report that it had sold 70 million Xbox 360s worldwide, and Microsoft’s executives have plenty of reason to be smiling this evening. Did you take advantage of the deals and pick up an Xbox 360 last week?

Xbox 360 sales rocket to 750,000 in US for week of Black Friday is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hmmm, normally, one would take to social media to spread the word on a particular event or happening at the lowest cost possible, but it seems as though this Black Friday, social media proved to be far from effective. In an IBM study, it discovered that shoppers referred from social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube generated a mere 0.34% of online sales on Black Friday itself, which is a huge drop from the minimum of 35% in the year 2011. You might be wonder, just what role did Twitter play throughout Black Friday? Fans of the little blue bird will be upset to hear that Twitter did not contribute anything at all to the bottomline.

Of course, there is no point in reading too much into a survey or study, as there are many othe parameters that one needs to be aware of when conducting such a study. Perhaps shoppers already did their homework beforehand this year, and did not need to ask around on which shop or what item to pick up. However, shoppers relied on social media to express satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with their purchases.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: SuitSuit Washing Machine Suitcase, GoalZero Brings Power To Those Affected by Hurricane Sandy,

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of partying with a bunch of my friends. All of them are pretty big nerds, just like me. If you’re a nerd too, you know that not much changes when a bunch of nerds get a few drinks in them, they just talk about nerdy things louder than usual. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to hear that the Steam autumn sale was among the topics that came up that night.

“So what do you think of the autumn sale?” one of my friends asked.

“Not impressed,” I replied. The look his face indicated that he agreed with me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good deal as much as the next gamer, and I am always willing to spill some serious cash during a Steam sale. I went into the autumn sale thinking that I was going to be buying up games left and right, but we’ve now entered the final day of the sale and so far I’ve purchased two games for a grand total of $17.48. I’m in fine standing with both my bank and my girlfriend as a result, but I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed.

There have been some good deals, to be sure – earlier in the sale, Skyrim took the stage as a featured deal, and right now Dishonored and Torchlight II, the latter of which being one of my 2012 favorites, are both 50% off. The problem, though, is that there’s going to be another Steam sale in less than a month. It’ll be big too, as Steam holiday sales always are. The autumn sale just pales in comparison to the blowout events that the holiday and summer sales have traditionally been, which leaves me wondering why we even need the autumn sale in the first place.

I understand why the autumn sale exists – everyone is going nuts over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so Valve holds a sale of its own to net some of the shoppers who have cash and are ready to spend it, provided the deals are good enough. With the autumn sale, however, it’s hard to get excited in the same way I’m excited for the holiday sale. In fact, it feels like the autumn sale is intentionally watered down in anticipation of the incoming holiday sale. It’s shorter than its summer and holiday siblings, there aren’t any publisher catalogs on offer, and the discounts don’t seem as deep. So, what’s the point when the holiday sale is knocking on the door?

Maybe this is all in my head. Maybe the problem is with me and not with the sale itself. With the holiday sale on the horizon, I’m hesitant to spend money during the autumn sale because there’s a feeling that they might be even cheaper in just a few short weeks. Even if I see a deal I know is good on a game I’ve been wanting to play, I question whether or not I should take advantage of it since I know (or at least assume) I’ll spend a lot of money during the holiday sale.

I can’t be the only one who feels that way, can I? I’d be interested to see how many people bite during the autumn sale in comparison to the summer and holiday sales, because I would imagine that the numbers for the autumn sale end up falling short. Valve – and other digitial distribution platforms for that matter – have something of a unique problem here. Most retailers don’t hold a holiday sale on the scale of Valve’s, only hosting massive sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Since PC gamers are used to blowout holiday sales and therefore expect them year after year, it makes pulling off an equally impressive Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale a bit trickier for those in the digital distribution arena.

What about you – has this been a great sale for you, or are you like me and feeling a little underwhelmed at the end of it all?

Do we really need the Steam autumn sale? is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’re anything like me—and I certainly hope you’re not, on any level—you’ve got a weakness for a good sale. Or any sale, really. For people like us, Black Friday and Cyber Monday present a conundrum: thousands of items, none of which you would buy under normal circumstances, paraded in front of your wallet at absurd discounts. So what did you in? More »

Black Friday was last Friday and if you did any online shopping that day, you helped push online shopping on Black Friday to its biggest amount in history. According to research firm comScore, Black Friday shopping online surged past $1 billion for the first time ever. A huge uptick in online shopping would seem to indicate that the economy in the US might finally be coming back.

According to the numbers for the holiday season to date (Nov 1-23) $13.7 billion has been spent online, which is a 16% increase compared to last year. The exact dollar amount in online sales for Friday, November 23 was $1.042 billion. That made Black Friday the busiest online shopping day in 2012 and was a 26% increase versus Black Friday 2011.

The numbers also show that significantly more than normal amounts of shoppers went online on Thanksgiving day, November 22 spending $633 million for a 32% increase compared to the previous year. One of the more interesting facts about the significant uptick in online shopping on Black Friday is that many online retailers hold their best deals for Cyber Monday, November 26.

If you’re wondering what the most popular website was for online shopping on Black Friday, Amazon takes that award. The second most popular website for online shopping was Walmart, followed by Best Buy, Target, and Apple. So far, the biggest growth in online purchases has been digital content and subscriptions. Rounding out the rest of the top five in order for the biggest growth compared to last year are toys, consumer packaged goods, video game consoles and accessories, and consumer electronics.

E-commerce shopping passed $1 billion on Black Friday for the first time is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.