The news coming out of Redmond from Microsoft today was not good for Sony. In what can only be dubbed as the first major round of the holiday sales fight between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, Microsoft is the victor; with Black Friday weekend sales numbers that saw the Xbox 360 outsell the PlayStation 3 by an incredible 3 to 1 margin. This is a 25% sales increase over 2007’s Black Friday weekend sales.

While the Nintendo Wii is still said to have outsold the Xbox 360, the advantage for Microsoft heading into the home stretch of holiday buying has to be good news for Microsoft. It is clear that while Microsoft was not sure what to really expect, the plans that they had in place with retailers, coupled with the recent price cuts, is excellent news for Microsoft and disappointing news for Sony.

Retailers worldwide have been running a variety of promotions on the console, as well as Xbox 360 titles, which also saw an exceptional surge in sales. Microsoft was very pleased with the Xbox 360 sales in Europe as well as other locations outside the North American market which have been traditionally strong for Microsoft.

Microsoft is hopeful that the momentum will continue and they will be able to grow the over 25 million installed base of Xbox 360 consoles that they already have. It is strongly believed that Sony’s decision not to slash the price of the PlayStation 3 for the holiday season may come back to haunt Sony, as Microsoft will continue to grow its installed console base; this will make it more difficult for Sony to overcome this advantage in the future.