Pachter's 2008 hardware sales forecast

[AlphaWolf]

ill take your word for it (i could only find the total for the first 6months of the fiscal year ie mar-sep2007 which averaged 1million a month total for US/japan+europe, thus to make 1.8 over the next 6months theyld have to sell at nearly 3x the rate of the first 6 months)

but dont dispair all will be revealed
i did find they will release their data at the 24th of april ie just over a week

Well in the US, the wii averaged 323k from march through sept, and 950k from oct to december, so that's pretty close to your 3x.

 

[StefanS]

ill take your word for it (i could only find the total for the first 6months of the fiscal year ie mar-sep2007 which averaged 1million a month total for US/japan+europe, thus to make 1.8 over the next 6months theyld have to sell at nearly 3x the rate of the first 6 months)

but dont dispair all will be revealed
i did find they will release their data at the 24th of april ie just over a week

Ok, I dug up my old xls file again and here what I found:
First of all, I was wrong to some extent. On average the sold one 1.4125 million per month worldwide from Jan 1st 07 to Dec 31st 07. Using their forcecast for April 07 to March 31 (from Jan 27) that number would be 1.5125 on average.

Keep in mind though that the first time frame includes the early launch phase (shipped lot of units at once) and that the production output was raised twice in the entire timeframe:
Production was about 1.2 million during the first months. It was raised to 1.5 million some time during Q2 (I am using calendial quarters, i.e. q1=jan until march 31). LINK. We know for sure that production had reached 1.8 million in October / November LINK (see bottom of the page).

Based on that I've two estimates:
A)
q1 07 : 1.2 million units / month q2 07: 1.5 q3 07: 1.8 q4 07: 1.8 q1 08: 1.8
average q1-q4 07: 1.575 million units / month
average q2 07-q1 08: 1.725 million units / month

B)
q1 07 : 1.2 million units / month q2 07: 1.2 q3 07: 1.5 q4 07: 1.8 q1 08: 1.8
average q1-q4 07: 1.425 million units / month
average q2 07-q1 08: 1.575 million units / month

Both are just rough estimates though. Personally, I think the first one is a tad on the optimistic side (immediate increase of q1), while the second one is fairly pessimistic (full production reached only in q4). But those are probably the upper and lower limits WRT factory output.

Basically, they seem to be very close to the average monthly output. Assuming estimate A (IMO, could be more realistic compared to B) is correct, there might to be some gap between the numbers.

EDIT:
for reference
Compiled data from the Nintendo Quarterly Reports (Dec 06 Dec 07)

 

[TheMightyPuck]

Where you have millions of people willing to pay $15 dollars a month for one game to have access to their favorite MMO, its hard to believe there exist a large marketshare of gamers where paying $4 dollars a month, to have online access to any 360 games that offer online gaming, is too much.

So true. Hell, I pay for Live and I don't really play games anymore. I don't really resent it (although I might when they automatically whack my CC and hit me for another year--I need to look into this). I pay 2 bucks to watch a TV episode on Live (drop it to 1 you morons--oh wait that includes me).

 

[dobwal]

How did you conclude that casual crowd don't care about online gaming? WoW is a social online game casual crowd are interested in. In a country like China or Korea, online gaming is the only genre that matters unless it's on DS/PSP/Wii.

Its a given, the more casual a gamer you are, the more likely the chance that you care little about online gaming. Im not saying all casual have no interest in online gaming, I saying that the proportion of gamers who have little interest in online gaming is bigger in the casual market versus the hardcore market.

4 dollars a month is $50 a year, or one game a year. There's a limit of disposable income regardless of what people want to buy and how they are bad at calculating their budget.

Look at what we dicussing. We not talking $5000 or even $500, we are talking $50 a year, which is not a huge sum of money over the given time period by any account.

Second, in relation to the casual market, a casual gamer is not going to let their game investment come down to the question of affordability. If you partake in a casual activity you're not going to invest large amounts of your resources into it, nor are you going to allow it to squeeze you budget to where $50.00 becomes very important. You have to get past the $250-$500 upfront investment for the console followed by the the $50-$60 pop for software before you get to the $4 dollars a month question. If you are a casual gamer who doesn't mind paying for the console plus the software, then cost of Live is going to be of little consquence. Live for a casual gamer isn't a question of affordability but a question of whether Live is a worthwhile purchase.

 

[AlNom]

you can buy a $20 wireless bridge and have it work you know.

Which one? All of the ones I've seen are at least $60.

 

[rekator]

Which one? All of the ones I've seen are at least $60.

You can also look at CPL product… don't known price but here in France you can have it from one provider for 50€ (better price than wireless bridge around 60€ or xbox official wifi 80€).

 

[Scott_Arm]

You can also look at CPL product… don't known price but here in France you can have it from one provider for 50€ (better price than wireless bridge around 60€ or xbox official wifi 80€).

Electronics seemed pretty expensive when I was in France, relative to Canada, so if he's in the USA he can probably expect to pay less than 50 euro.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Which one? All of the ones I've seen are at least $60.

there's quite a few of them in the $30-45 range.

 

[AlNom]

< AlStrong is still no closer to finding any product in that range >

They exist....but where? What product?



I'm in Canada btw.

 

[AlphaWolf]

< AlStrong is still no closer to finding any product in that range >

They exist....but where? What product?



I'm in Canada btw.

Well being in Canada does screw up the price curve a bit. You just need a wireless gaming adapter like this. There's always ebay though.

You can also just modify your wireless router with custom firmware.

 

[AlNom]

Thanks I might try the router thing since I have a spare one lying around (the hardware was getting twitchy, but it might be functional enough for this).

Lotta hoops to get through just to connect the bloody thing up to the net though. *sigh*

 

[AlphaWolf]

Lotta hoops to get through just to connect the bloody thing up to the net though. *sigh*

Yep, I just snagged the 360 wireless adapter when it was on sale at superstore for $70 (actually a bit less as I got it on a no tax friday), because I didn't want to be bothered.

 

[Zassk]

Alas, the Linksys one is $71.40 in Canada.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Alas, the Linksys one is $71.40 in Canada.

you can usually do better than ncix

There's other cheaper models to be had also, I'm not sure what the best option is, but if he wants to do the router thing that should be cheapest.

ebay has some auctions for gaming bridges for ~$30.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

XB360 doubles sales in Europe
Shame there's no numbers though. We don't know what they were selling to know what they're selling now or how they compare to the others!
And we don't have relative performance of the other consoles either. Doubled over what period? What did the other systems manage in the same time-frame?

 

[DJ12]

Well MVC reported that it's price cut only made it compete with the PS3 in the UK (it was still lower according to them) so I'm guessing it isn't that big of a deal and will not stop the PS3 claiming victory in Europe.

 

[Arwin]

Microsoft slashed the price of all three Xbox 360 consoles on 14th March, shaving GBP 50 off its Premium unit and GBP 40 off the Elite and Arcade machines.

Indeed. It's an expected increase, I reckon. It won't amount to a whole lot though except in the UK, where the 360 was close to the PS3, but it will be interesting to see what the long term effects are and how it may affect sales when GTA4 comes out. On the flipside, the PS3 saw a great boost from GT5 Prologue in April I reckon, as well as potentially from the MGS Online Open Beta in Europe, if that takes off properly tonight. These are exciting times.

Also interesting is that it seems Wii demand in Europe could be satisfied fairly quickly and that focus could shift back to the US as a result (from NextGen.biz). However, Wii Fit comes out here in Europe this month too, and it'll be interesting to see what kind of impact it has. It got a good review in Eurogamer and gets a lot of mainstream press apparently.

 

[slider]

...as well as potentially from the MGS Online Open Beta in Europe, if that takes off properly tonight...

I think the placement in peoples minds of "HD gaming begins at £150" will be very powerful. But best to wait for fuller figures.

Incidentally, I'm DL'ing the MGS Online Beta from the UK store right now!

 

[pipo]

Re: Europe / GTA4 / X360

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/microsoft-s-gta-iv-spend-to-match-halo-3

Microsoft has said that its marketing push for the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV is going to match that of last year's Halo 3 release.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Well MVC reported that it's price cut only made it compete with the PS3 in the UK (it was still lower according to them) so I'm guessing it isn't that big of a deal and will not stop the PS3 claiming victory in Europe.

Yeah... The fact that the X360 still has the lead and now the pace the PS3's catching up with it has slowed done considerably, well that totally does not matter at all.