GameDaily BIZ has received the latest monthly Famitsu marketing data service report for the period covering October 1 - 28. Although software sales fell by over 14 percent, hardware sales climbed 30 percent, resulting in overall industry growth of 2.2 percent.
The notable hardware news is that Microsoft's Xbox 360 has finally surpassed that of the original Xbox - within two years to boot. Through October 28 in Japan, the Xbox 360 has sold 474,000 units, exceeding the original Xbox total of 473,000 units. Famitsu said this was fueled partially by the arrival of the Xbox 360 Elite model (120GB, HDMI-enabled) on October 11. That said, Xbox 360 sold just 18,717 during October.