Microsoft says that more than 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold to date. The figure makes for interesting reading. As of June, the platform holder said it had had shipped (not sold) 11.6 million Xbox 360s, but seemingly that batch has now been completely snapped up.
A recent Financial Times report said that Nintendo's Wii had overtaken Microsoft's Xbox 360 as the best-selling next-gen console, although the reported figures had not been corroborated by any of the big three console manufacturers at the time.
The report stated that through the end of July (or the end of August in Japan), 9 million consumers had purchased Wiis, 8.9 million had bought Xbox 360s and 3.7 million had bought PS3s, putting Nintendo's Wii ahead of the competition.
The Times said it had compiled the sales figures from US-based NPD Group, Japan's Enterbrain and GfK from Germany, a European sales tracker.
As of the end of June, Nintendo said it had sold 9.27 million Wiis based on sales to retailers, not consumers.
Sony had shipped about 5.5 million PS3s by the end of its fiscal year in March, around 3.6 million of which were sold during that timeframe.
So which next-gen console is the best selling to date? It's hard to tell. Xbox 360 may still be slightly ahead of Nintendo's Wii, based on Microsoft's latest figures, although if that is the case the Wii can't be far behind at all.
