Pachter's 2008 hardware sales forecast

[Shifty Geezer]

When the other dedicated BRD players come out later this year with ethernet ports so that they are updatable, offering 2.0 profiles ... and a $250-$300, the boost that PS3 is receiving from being the best BRD available (which is the bulk of the PS3's surge because there is NOTHING in their game library which warrants any significant boost at this time) will disappear

Which is the better economy : A $250 BRD player and a $250 XB360, or a $400 PS3?

MGS may sell well...

As well as Gears of War 2...?

but the question is - is it enough to make those who own a 360 or Wii buy a PS3..?

Um, why are Sony only trying to sell to existing console owners? What's wrong with the other billions of people in the world who own no consoles?

so GT5 is interesting but not really significant...

Yep. That's why it hasn't topped the Spanish and German charts and sold a million copies on preorders, and that's ignoring downloads.

the OP and subsequent posts are wrong on so many levels its incredible.

No disagreements with me on that one

 

[Tap In]

PS3 has been outselling 360 in the WORLD (ie not just America) for more than just 2 months....

proof?

as Shifty has noted, there is no viable source for that and even if you could provide it, outselling in some WW markets on a monthly basis is a lot different than saying 360 is "losing WW", which is what some are implying.

The 360 could lose in the rest of the territories outside of NA for several years (if "rumored" sales numbers WW are to be believed and extrapolated) and it would still be ahead in overall WW install base.

 

[PARANOiA]

360 is practically dead in Austrailia now according to retailers

What a load of horse shit. Have you been into an Australian game store lately? 360 games have more shelf space than PS3 and Wii combined. Is that your definition of dead? How many retails have you spoken to?

That Smarthouse article is a load of rubbish, and if you spent a few minutes reading some of their past "news" you'd understand that. In fact, they've been in the news quite a bit lately over here for their dodgy reporting and shady deals with retailers and manufacturers. Please, don't post everything you read on the internet as fact without at least taking a few minutes to think about it.

 

[liolio]

Ps3 and 360 aim at the same market.
There are some issues that the 360 has to face in regard to ps3 and mass market adoption:

casual gamers won't pay for gold live member ship => no online.
I'm casual if I buy a 360 I won't play a lot online, I can pay 4 euros per month but I won't if I play 3/4 hours per months.


percieved value, BRD has become more revelent now that the war is ended.
The ps3 is percieved as a way more potent system (MS should have paid for better cgi back in 2005 as dumb as it sounds Sony has set mindset in one show...).

MS need some technical showcase: GeoW II no matter as good as it looks won't do the trick as the same tech is available on the ps3.
GT5 prologue sells really well, the IP is amazingly strong, but the success of this IP also comes for MS lacking, Forza II didn't delivered enough eye candy, that's it, no matter how good is the physic, or AI in regard of what GT delivered in its past iterations.

From my reading on a lot of forum, the perceived value of the 360 line up for 2008 is underrated.
Too much secrecy or some real weakness here.
What rare is up too? What will be the killer racer his chrismass?
Too Human miss its goal I guess, and at this point I tend to think that (if the game ends good) even the cleverer marketing campaign won't make up for it.
So if MS has some stuffs worse it, they should leak some photoshopped screens and infos, They may want to have a strong show at E3 so the secrecy but they need to rise expectations now.

 

[RobertR1]

MS needs marketing. That's really their main problem. We're enthusiasts (and some fanboys!) who will see past marketing but we're also not the majority of their user base. They need to jump head first into good marketing a make an impressionis.

 

[Crossbar]

Why would Nintendo drop price on Wii when at least in USA they sell more than they cam make at 250? Doesn't make sense.

FYI I just noticed that quite a few online dealers in Sweden dropped the price of the Wii about 100 - 200 SEK (approx. $20-$30). And yes the Wii has been proportionally similary priced as the the PS3 and the 360in the US, up until the recent price drop of the 360. Wii availability has been good here since last summer, with exception for December.

I assume there is some reasons for this drop, getting below 2500 SEK may be psychologically important for casual gamers impulse shopping. You can also now find the 360 Arcade for 1900 SEK in shops. I would love to know what impact that price drop had so far, while the PS3 40 GB is still stuck at about 4000 SEK.

I am not suggesting Pachters predictions are more credible than others, but I think his faulty predictions of the future Wii sales back in 2006 was as good as anyone elses back then. The Wii sales even took Nintendo by surprise.

 

[liolio]

Here in France, the price cut is widely advertised(mainly through street ads panel? sorry I fail to find the proper english word), Ms advertises mainly the arcade @199 euros.
But they miss the killer apps, we will how strong they push the GTA IV bundle (which is obviously on its way).
But they have a pretty healthy presence.

If we speak of the TV ads, I guess Sony ads are better, the product looks classier multi purpose (and mysterious), they push the BRD capability and it becomes more relevant now (even if I'm sure that a lot of consumers weren't aware about the state of war between hd-dvd and brd).
Ms ads are about games so they pretend to have the best games BUT they completely fail to present the 360 as a package, online integration and all that comes with live arcade, demos, (patches... ) pc interoperability, etc.

Wii spots present persons playing (lot of girls and some guys), Nintendo successfully relies on identification from its costumers, Sony try to give its product some ""mystic" with really creative/conceptual spots, pushing the
"high endness" of the ps3, the brd capability, MS spots fall short..

their leitmotive is "les meilleurs jeux sont sur 360" best games are on the 360".
This maybe true (so far), but the product doesn't look high end attractive, nor they manage to create a universe (mystic) surounding their product as Sony, they're not trying to force identification aka nintendo, demoing friends playing and discusing online if not exotic would give a better idea of the console capability (especially as this fonction is still to be introduced on the ps3 or has been really lately ..memory issue).

In my opinion theirs ads are lame, "the best games are on 360" doesn't sound as good as EA "it's about games" and EA wouldn't dare do its ads only around this slogan... if you see what I mean... their creatives / marketers might be also encountering supplies issue (sorry for the bad taste joke).
Far from inspirational...

 

[thatdude90210]

I am not suggesting Pachters predictions are more credible than others, but I think his faulty predictions of the future Wii sales back in 2006 was as good as anyone elses back then. The Wii sales even took Nintendo by surprise.

Seems quite a few people quickly realized the potential of the Wii by middle of 06. As soon as the controller was shown (late 05), some of us even predicted Nintendo to take Japan.

 

[betan]

When the other dedicated BRD players come out later this year with ethernet ports so that they are updatable, offering 2.0 profiles ... and a $250-$300, the boost that PS3 is receiving from being the best BRD available (which is the bulk of the PS3's surge because there is NOTHING in their game library which warrants any significant boost at this time) will disappear. E3 hasnt arrived so we dont know whats in store for 2008 or beyond on the 360, we havent seen Gears 2 which is the shooter series next closest to being a tentpole after Halo (apologies to RFROM and Killzone). MGS may sell well...but the question is - is it enough to make those who own a 360 or Wii buy a PS3..? Not the other way around. Racing as a genre is failing... so GT5 is interesting but not really significant...

the OP and subsequent posts are wrong on so many levels its incredible.

A fitting conclusion indeed.

That said, it's refreshing to see not everyone sees a bright future for PS3.
I sometimes miss all the PS3 doom and gloom posts.

Do you have any numbers for Asia outside of Japan?

The 360 is still the leader in LTD in many markets aside from the US. The ps3 having currently stronger monthly sales isn't that significant from a developer perspective. They are looking at install base.

And developers' perspective is on topic how exactly?

 

[Crossbar]

Seems quite a few people quickly realized the potential of the Wii by middle of 06. As soon as the controller was shown (late 05), some of us even predicted Nintendo to take Japan.

With the exception of some B3D people whose predictions of course are always spot on. Sorry I forgot to make that disclaimer.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

as Shifty has noted, there is no viable source for that and even if you could provide it, outselling in some WW markets on a monthly basis is a lot different than saying 360 is "losing WW", which is what some are implying.

Having looked up some figures, we do have some info to think about though. MS have told us there's 18 million XB360s sold, and we have data from NA for 11-12 million XB360s. That's 6-7 million outside NA. We know 2 million of those are in the UK, and half a million in Japan. So 4-5 million elsewhere - a fair number.

Furthermore a plot of worldwide sales and NA sales shows that the gradients are discrete. Worldwide sales are increasing at a greater rate than the NA install base, which again shows the market is increasing. So unless the past few months, with the price cut and all, has caused a sudden stop in XB360 sales, there's every reason to think XB360 is selling as well outside of NA as it has ever done, which isn't really great, but it isn't dead either - unless you count XB360's EU launch as stillborn!

 

[Akumajou]

When the other dedicated BRD players come out later this year with ethernet ports so that they are updatable, offering 2.0 profiles ... and a $250-$300, the boost that PS3 is receiving from being the best BRD available (which is the bulk of the PS3's surge because there is NOTHING in their game library which warrants any significant boost at this time) will disappear. E3 hasnt arrived so we dont know whats in store for 2008 or beyond on the 360, we havent seen Gears 2 which is the shooter series next closest to being a tentpole after Halo (apologies to RFROM and Killzone). MGS may sell well...but the question is - is it enough to make those who own a 360 or Wii buy a PS3..? Not the other way around. Racing as a genre is failing... so GT5 is interesting but not really significant...

the OP and subsequent posts are wrong on so many levels its incredible.

So are you implying that all "big killer apps" worth mentioning are first and third person shooters?

So GT5 will not be significant in PS3 sales because racing as a genre is failing and as you say, there is nothing in that console's library to warrant a significant boost?

The market is currently saturated with generic and mediocre military first and third person shooters, with the X360 leading that edge, at some point gamers will grow bored or tired of the same thing and move on to something else and its no surprise why XBox does get labeled the military shooter console.

Currently the idea behind PS3 is the same as PS2 when it comes to games, a growing variety that obviously takes time to grow just as it took on PS2 keeping in mind that the console was launched in March 2000 and the major system sellers did not show up until November 2001.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So GT5 will not be significant in PS3 sales because racing as a genre is failing and as you say

Second week at number one in UK.

at some point gamers will grow bored or tired of the same thing and move on to something else

Internet response to Haze suggests that's the case. A lack of anything particularly knew has produced lacklustre interest. As blakjedi says though, we haven't had a good list of what's coming to XB360 this year, so your ideas of PS3 having an advantage in broad appeal isn't really confirmed.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Having looked up some figures, we do have some info to think about though. MS have told us there's 18 million XB360s sold, and we have data from NA for 11-12 million XB360s. That's 6-7 million outside NA. We know 2 million of those are in the UK, and half a million in Japan. So 4-5 million elsewhere - a fair number.

Furthermore a plot of worldwide sales and NA sales shows that the gradients are discrete. Worldwide sales are increasing at a greater rate than the NA install base, which again shows the market is increasing. So unless the past few months, with the price cut and all, has caused a sudden stop in XB360 sales, there's every reason to think XB360 is selling as well outside of NA as it has ever done, which isn't really great, but it isn't dead either - unless you count XB360's EU launch as stillborn!

The other thing is these tracking groups for NA and Japan don't account for 100% of sales in those regions. There probably isn't 4-5 million elsewhere. Some percentage of that extra 4-5 million is from NA, UK and Japan as well.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The tracking numbers (NPD) don't record sales, but estimate them in their figures. I don't think huge numbers of units slip through the nets, but I don't know for sure.

 

[betan]

The other thing is these tracking groups for NA and Japan don't account for 100% of sales in those regions. There probably isn't 4-5 million elsewhere. Some percentage of that extra 4-5 million is from NA, UK and Japan as well.

Their accuracy may be in question, but not coverage.
It may be more, it may be less.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The tracking numbers (NPD) don't record sales, but estimate them in their figures. I don't think huge numbers of units slip through the nets, but I don't know for sure.

You are right. I am wrong.

 

[cloud9]

Unfortunately, Pachter's numbers do not seem entirely logical to me.

As others have said, the 360 is currently experiencing a better Q1 compared to last year, so I fail to see how the current numbers equate to less annual sales. Add this to the fact that the 360 will no doubt get another price drop, and Pachter's prediction makes even less sense.

And for those wondering why the PS3 isn't kicking the crap out of Microsoft's Xbox, well, the answer is quite simple: a dearth of compelling software and barebones online service. Admittedly, both are making great strides in the right direction, but have yet to reach the bar set by the 360 and Xbox Live.

 

[Vic]

Unfortunately, Pachter's numbers do not seem entirely logical to me.

As others have said, the 360 is currently experiencing a better Q1 compared to last year, so I fail to see how the current numbers equate to less annual sales. Add this to the fact that the 360 will no doubt get another price drop, and Pachter's prediction makes even less sense.

And for those wondering why the PS3 isn't kicking the crap out of Microsoft's Xbox, well, the answer is quite simple: a dearth of compelling software and barebones online service. Admittedly, both are making great strides in the right direction, but have yet to reach the bar set by the 360 and Xbox Live.

Eh? The majority of gamers couldnt care less about the online service, and certainly not enough to pay for it.

What MS have done is corner the hardcore market, and its those gamers who place a strong emphasis on Live!

Pachters predictions are based on what he thinks will happen at the time of year when console sales are high. During Q1 they are low.

 

[one]

As others have said, the 360 is currently experiencing a better Q1 compared to last year, so I fail to see how the current numbers equate to less annual sales.

And for those wondering why the PS3 isn't kicking the crap out of Microsoft's Xbox, well, the answer is quite simple: a dearth of compelling software and barebones online service. Admittedly, both are making great strides in the right direction, but have yet to reach the bar set by the 360 and Xbox Live.

Do you have sales data in EU? The OP mentions not only the US.

Another point is whether Gears of War 2 and GTA4 can match the demand of Halo 3. In addition, hardware sales are relatively affected by the competition. As you mention the lack of software / service hurt PS3 last year, but this year PS3 have several forthcoming big titles and online service improvements, not to mention Blu-ray.