"Last time around, in the last six weeks of 2001, Microsoft sold 1.4 million original Xboxes in the U.S. market. This time, it sold 607,000 Xbox 360s in the U.S. On top of that, it sold about 300,000 units in Europe and about 100,000 units in Japan, according to analyst Michael Pachter at Wedbush Morgan. In 2001, production began a few days before Sept. 21, when Microsoft announced the first of its factories began making machines. So, the two factories made on average about 100,000 original Xboxes a week in 2001. This time around, two factories owned by Flextronics and Wistron started production sometime during the fall and managed to ship about 1 million units.

By comparison, the Nintendo DS sold an estimated 1.22 million units in the U.S. during its first holiday season in 2004. The GameCube sold 1.2 million units in its first season in 2001 in the U.S. And the PlayStation 2 sold 1.1 million units in its first season in 2000. The Sega Dreamcast sold 400,000 units in its first 30 days in 1999. In its first four months, it sold 1.8 million units in the U.S. (The Dreamcast's first holiday season was a long once since it started selling on 9-9-99)." [link]