This last weekend's start of the holiday shopping season beat all expectations indeed, as US consumers spent 3 percent more than last year despite the long debated financial crisis. And as far as the game industry is concerned, it fared even better. Moreover Microsoft didn’t hesitate to congratulate the record Black Friday performance from the Xbox 360.

Monday Microsoft sent a press release detailing the Xbox 360's performance on Black Friday. According to the company, its console sales "were on pace to beat previous years, outselling the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one ratio and estimating a 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales figures from 2007."

Basing its success on games such as “Gears of War 2,” “Fable II,” and “Lips”, Microsoft described a “historic Black Friday for Xbox 360”, with a 25% increase in sold units over Black Friday 2007. Nevertheless the most sough-after game console may once again be Nintendo’s Wii. By far. But even if the Wii is out of reach for Microsoft and Sony, Microsoft is convinced that it beat the PS3 in Black Friday sales.

The Wii has sold around 19 million units worldwide so far in 2008, which means Nintendo could have already made as much as $114 million in profits before selling a single piece of software. It's been common knowledge for a while that Nintendo profits on their hardware (due to the less expensive technological specs of the Wii), but this is the latest sense of just how much they actually make on every console sold. Six dollars per Wii may not sound like much, but when you consider that Sony loses money on every PlayStation 3 they sell, and Microsoft, according to Forbes, perhaps breaks even at best, then a $6 profit starts to sounds like a hefty one.

But apart from everything else, Microsoft claims that the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 week over week across Europe since the September price drop bringing the basic Xbox 360 system to $199.99 worldwide. Microsoft Senior VP of Interactive Business Don Mattrick said in a statement, "We entered into the Black Friday sales period with cautious optimism, knowing that dollar for dollar, Xbox 360 offers more social entertainment value than any other console on the market. Record Black Friday sales in the U.S., coupled with our existing global install base of 25 million and an online community of more than 14 million Xbox LIVE members, have laid the groundwork for continued global sales momentum in 2009."

Last month, the software maker officially launched New Xbox Experience, a service that combines the company's Xbox 360 gaming console and Xbox Live online network into a platform for streaming Netflix movies, holding chat sessions, sharing photos, and engaging in other online activities.

The recent Xbox 360 could be a consequence of the fact that last September, Microsoft cut the price of the Xbox 360 by almost 30 percent for some models. The entry Xbox 360 Arcade package dropped from $279 to $199 and the basic 60-GB hard drive step-up dropped from $349 to $299. The high-end Xbox 360 Elite with a 120GB hard drive fell from $449 to $399.

On the other hand, Nintendo is doing great as well, as it sold 981,000 Wii’s in November of last year and is generally expected to have sold well over 1 million units last month.