Who will be the market leader (console sales) at the end of CY2007?

[Acert93]

Who will be the 'next gen' market leader (console sales) at the end of CY2007?

As many know, Nintendo's Wii recently passed Microsoft's Xbox 360 in global sales. Considering how poorly Nintendo's GameCube console sold and the leadtime and install base advantages the Xbox 360 had over the Wii this is a surprising, if not extremely interesting turn of events. Yet there is little consensus on the various factors pushing the market forward, or how the market will look 1 year down the road, let alone 3 or 4.

So I want to do a little poll:

Which company will have sold the most 'next gen' consoles (Wii, 360, or PS3) by the end of CY2007?

Feel free (although no obligation) to post further thoughts about:

1/ How & Why you arrive at this prediction.

2/ How software attach rate will fill out this year.

3/ In your estimation, will there be a further change in market leadership in 2008? 2009? (i.e. 'Console A' will be #1 in 2007, but 'Console B' will be #1 in 2008).

4/ What has propelled Wii sales?

5/ What will be the major forces and markets driving the market in general, and each console individually, over this holiday period? Beyond this holiday?

6/ Who will be leading in each region? Any significant changes?

7/ Other

Rules: No bickering. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Feel free to give reasons why you may disagree with someone, but as these are predictions and estimations respect the fact no one is right yet and that this "excercise" tells us as much about how we individually, and as a group, view the market as it does what will really happen.

EDIT: Some small changes to make it really clear I am talking about Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 and am not interested in old console sales or "company health in the general gaming market with a cross section view of new, old, and portable console sales" etc.

"Next gen" only folks!

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

Wouldn’t it still be Sony!? PS2 sales haven’t fell off the map quite yet.


PS2 is still selling well (very well), PS3 is gaining traction, and the PSP is doing fine.

 

[Acert93]

Wouldn’t it still be Sony!? PS2 sales haven’t fell off the map quite yet.

I knew a Sony or Nintendo fan was going to bring that up, hence,

Which company will sell the most consoles (Wii, 360, or PS3) by the end of CY2007?

That and the opening sentance discussing the Wii and 360 flip flop... ANYHOW, lets keep it focused on the new consoles. If we are counting past gen total sales, then there is no point for a poll seeing as no one is passing the PS2!

Well, maybe the DS

Ps- I made some additional edits, namely to the subject line, to make my question clearer from the get go/subject with no need to read the post.

 

[RobertR1]

It'll be between Wii and the 360 with the Wii most likely taking it.

If the 360 get another price drop by black friday. Core to $199 and Premium to $299, along with favourable reviews for Halo3 and Mass Effect they should give the Wii a good fight in the US atleast.

Sony need to get to $399 and fast. That won't win it for them this holiday but it should keep them in the hunt and close.

 

[Titanio]

Wii, no question in my mind. It's on fire in all territories, which is more than can be said for any other console really. They have 3 very strong drivers (JPN, US, Europe) - and stronger by large or extremely large margins in each case - whereas the others can really only claim 1 or 2 moderate drivers at best.

 

[AlphaWolf]

1/ How & Why you arrive at this prediction.

When I read your poll, it reads to me as if you just want to know which console will have the largest installed base at the end of 2007. There's only one correct answer for that, the Wii. It has been massively outselling its competition over the past few months and is still mostly constrained by supply.

Over the holiday season I'm certain that the ps3 and the xbox 360 will gain on Wii because of supply constraint and in the case of the 360 a very strong fall lineup, but they aren't going to be able to outsell the wii yet unless supply is somehow a major factor. (I should also mention that I know the rrod issues have held back the 360 and a lot of people are waiting for falcon).

2/ How software attach rate will fill out this year.

I don't expect any major changes on that front, the xbox360 may gain slightly (maybe to 6.5 or so with its strong fall lineup) but the holiday season moving a lot of consoles will still make it difficult to increase attach rate by a big margin.

3/ In your estimation, will there be a further change in market leadership in 2008? 2009? (i.e. 'Console A' will be #1 in 2007, but 'Console B' will be #1 in 2008).

The Wii will stay ahead at least through 2008, although I do expect its popularity to drop as the other consoles fall in price.

4/ What has propelled Wii sales?

Price and attraction to the casual audience.

5/ What will be the major forces and markets driving the market in general, and each console individually, over this holiday period? Beyond this holiday?

I think only the xbox360 has the games this fall to really move boxes. PS3 will need to use other factors such as blu-ray and price cuts to make it more appealing. The Wii doesn't really need to a lot as its been mostly supply constrained although I don't doubt there will be holiday bundles that will be attractive.

6/ Who will be leading in each region? Any significant changes?

No changes.

7/ Other

What we have now is a situation where the wii is selling like hotcakes without a lot of great games, it remains to be seen if developers will support the wii and how they will support it. Will they start releasing a whole lot of puzzle, mini games etc or will they just start porting more traditional titles, or start with ground up games.

The 360 is the most traditional console of the generation it seems to have the best backing of developers and it seems its going to continue to get more franchises. The 360 owners have shown they'll buy games at a massive pace so I expect it to sell better as more and more titles appear and more people begin the need to move to a new console, but until its price is in the $150 range it has no chance of catching the Wii.

The ps3 I think its destined to be stuck in 3rd place this gen, it just doesn't seem to have picked up the developer support and its high price point and meh sales of HD movies in general are holding it back. 2 or 3 years down the road when the title base is significant, price point is down and the HD movies are moving, I expect it might gain back some market share.

I don't think this generation of consoles will have a clear cut winner, I expect that the Wii will hold on for at least couple years to the installed base lead, but I don't think it will ever attract most of the hardcore gaming base.

 

[rbushner]

I feel the Wii and 360 will be close. Wii will finish ahead, but I expect the 360 to outsell the Wii through the holiday season in the US.

The 360 is going to have a fantastic holiday season. They have built up a tremendous library, and the Xbox arcade will push much closer to mainstream pricing.

I think the Wii would have an unprecedented holiday season, except I don't see them being able to ramp up stocks. They already sell them as fast as they make them, unfortunately they aren't making them fast enough.

PS3 is just too expensive. Even if it had a good library of great games, it's just too expensive.

 

[uumai]

I to agree with most. It'll be close with the Wii and 360, with the wii possibly a bit ahead.

I too think the RROD and the 65nm on horizon holding people off (it's holding me off)

The PS3 is just way too expensive to be up there this early, maybe in a few years time it will have a chance.

 

[thatdude90210]

The 360 will have a good holiday season. But given how the Wii caught up to 20 months of 360 sales in just over 8 months, the only way the Wii doesn't lead by end of 2007 is if they can't keep up with the supply.

 

[zed]

huh, at the time of posting it was 1 wii + 4 xb360 (early days for the poll though). ppl are dissillusioned
it can only go one way wii will easily be the leader at the end of 2007
based on xb360+wii sales are equal now
but the wii is heavily outselling xb360 in america/japan + europe (ie everywhere except for a few places eg here in nz), halo wont push the xb360 over wii during sep

now leader at the end of 2008 though, thats a topic for a valid poll

 

[scooby_dooby]

The 360 will have a good holiday season. But given how the Wii caught up to 20 months of 360 sales in just over 8 months, the only way the Wii doesn't lead by end of 2007 is if they can't keep up with the supply.

QFT.

There's no way the Wii is not the top selling console by the end of the year, unless they can't produce as many units as the X360.

The vast majority of 3rd party software sales will still reside on the PS3 and 360 however.

 

[fearsomepirate]

1/ How & Why you arrive at this prediction.

I think Xbox 360 will sell much better than Wii over Christmas in the USA, however, Wii will sell so many consoles between now and the Christmas season that strong USA sales won't put 360 back on top.

2/ How software attach rate will fill out this year.

That's a tough one to call. X360's userbase consists of pretty hardcore gamers who really eat up software, and I don't think that will change. It's nowhere near the price of something that people buy just for one or two mainstream games. I think we'll see some slightly more interesting software for Wii announced, but most of it will be in Japan, and I don't think the overall attach rate is going to explode to the level of 360 or anything.

3/ In your estimation, will there be a further change in market leadership in 2008? 2009? (i.e. 'Console A' will be #1 in 2007, but 'Console B' will be #1 in 2008).

Nintendo really doesn't have much major software left coming out that people who don't yet own a Wii care about. If third parties don't announce/advertise anything soon, I think the steam will wear off and Wii's sales will severely tank.

4/ What has propelled Wii sales?

Novelty, the DS (I think a lot of Gamecube owners moved quickly to Wii because of how good DS is), nevativity toward 360/PS3 because of price, reliability, game library, etc, fun party games.

 

[Acert93]

I will delve into this more when I have time, but my money is on the Xbox 360. Here are my quick hits.

All three platforms have some good software coming out. PS3 has R&C, Uncharted, UT3, Warhawk, Haze, and a big PR push for Heavenly Sword and Lair. The Wii has Mario, Metroid, and SSB. The 360 has Halo, Bioshock, Mass Effect, and PGR4. The PS3 and Xbox 360 will both be getting CoD4, Assassin's Creed, Brother in Arms 3, Half-Life Orange Box and a number of other big time 3rd party titles. People can argue a lot about who has the best exclusives until everyone is blue in the face. I think Nintendo may have the best "top 3" by a hair, but in terms of market range I think MS with its 3rd party assist has a little more appeal. The big difference, though, between all three is the depth of 3rd party support which is heavily in the 360's favor, the 360's large back catalogue of next gen games, and a large library of budget titles.

I don't think consumers lose with any platform, or that any single platform will meet every consumer need. But I think in terms of breadth, depth, and value I do see Microsoft with a distinct advangtage. Outside the top 3, I would be very tempted to put the PS3 ahead of the Wii in terms of software.

I think (and could be wrong) that the 360's software lineup is going to push them ahead this holiday. I think the impact of Madden and Halo are going to have an echo effect. While a game like Metroid Prime 3 is a great game, I don't think it has the staying power or sales power of Halo 3. I think MP3 will get hit to a degree like Bioshock did -- immediate ground swell of hype and raves, only to subside. Why? No real replay value. Halo 3 will have the same ground swell of hype, and then will remain in the gamer conscious and dialogue due to 4 player coop, Forge, and MP. The game is going to have crazy legs. So I think Halo 3, out of all the titles coming out this fall, will grab the most mindshare and keep it. 5M copies sold in CY2007? I think it can and probably will.

So you may disagree with these points.

Ok, fair enough. The other big factor in the Wii/360 race is availability. Where I work we stress a number of business principles, but a MAJOR ones is consumer availability. Having a great product means nothing if consumers cannot get it when they want it.

The Wii is still struggling here and I don't see them breaking more than 1M units a month by any sizable margin in 2007.

To contrast, I think MS has the ability to stuff the channels. We saw it last year, and I think we could see it again. Of course who knows with 65nm production, but MS has bet on 2007 and it would be shocking if they didn't have enough units available. MS also seems to be using pricing, in conjuction with software, to help perk sales. Price Drop, Madden & Bioshock, Halo 3, (price drop?), the holiday glut. MS is loaded to the gills in August, September, October, and November. I see this driving consistantly high demand.

I think Wii will have similarly high demand, but will continue to fail to meet that demand in regards to available units.

Sony... even with a "price drop" and bundles, sales just aren't going well. Their big software titles haven't been critically received as you would hope large exclusives would be... and the price is horrible. They have some great software coming this fall and a nice library of software, but the price is going to continue being a HUGE hurdle. Toss in the fact there is a lot of conflict in HD media land ($200 HD DVD players, Paramount jumping ship, etc) and even BDR isn't a totally compelling sales point. I think Sony may end up CY2007 at about half the total sales of MS as well as Nintendo.

I could be wrong, but I see MS eek out a million+ over the Wii, with Sony lagging 7M+ behind them.

As far as software, Nintendo will see really good 1st party sales and continued weak total 3rd party sales (but a couple gems selling well). The 360's attach rate won't rise much (you add millions of new consumers it can lower attach rate) but 3rd party sales will be high... with a number of 3rd party titles selling great, and a lot of also rans doing horribly due to the market saturation. I don't know what to make of PS3 software sales... R&C & Uncharted should sell well. UT3 should be ok but may not fit the console market; Haze is up in the air (Halo killer or also ran?) HS will sell well, Lair modestly so. I just don't see any breaking down the door in sales, and 3rd party titles... I am not sure how those will be perceived on a platform perceived as better but often get worse reviews than their 360 counterparts.

Ps- I tried to be different by not picking the "Wii is on Fire" I do see manufacturing as a huge issue. MS sales are going to pick up substantially the last 5 months of the year. Wii is supply limited and see MS far exceeding their 2006 sales push. They are at a tie right now, so a 1M edge for MS at years end -- only for Wii to pass again in the Spring sometime -- as a reasonable, non-chick guess. There is a good chance I will be eating crow on this though

 

[Cryect]

The Wii is still struggling here and I don't see them breaking more than 1M units a month by any sizable margin in 2007.

They appeared to have sold around 1.16 Million for July (from latest NPD GAF thread).

Japan: 335,307
Other: 360,000 (90k weeks)
US: 425,000
Canada: 36,419

Will be interesting to see how much more than that they can push if they've been doing any sort of stockpiling for the Holiday sales.

 

[Acert93]

They appeared to have sold around 1.16 Million for July (from latest NPD GAF thread).

That isn't a sizable margin the last time I checked To put into perspective, I can see the 360 pulling at least one 2M month. That is why I selected the word sizable. But semantics may be irrelevant if you are correct and they are able to push production boundaries further. IMO they may need to, as I would expect the 360 to have at least one 2M month. At a virtual tie right now, if the 360 does 1M a month for the remainder of the year (not unlikely IMO), and has one 2M month, they beat the Wii right there.

Will be interesting to see how much more than that they can push if they've been doing any sort of stockpiling for the Holiday sales.

That would be the ultimate smack down... wow. Would Nintendo be so cruel?

 

[Arwin]

Wii. We haven't even seen the start of it yet. 2007 and 2008 will very likely be it's best years. Supply constraint they may have, but I think they'll get some extra units out - they've been working to increase capacity recently.

The 360 could do well too, but last Christmas it was up against supply constrained competitors and did not even have all competitors out yet in all regions. Also, it's not looking like much will change in Japan.

The PS3 is going to take off much stronger in Europe once PES and FIFA come out. Wether it will do better than the 360 at that point is doubtful, but not impossible. Also, HD infiltration will be insane in Europe (at least in the richer parts) over the next Christmas. It will at least double, could be more. You can barely buy another TV, and space is key. This could influence the success of PS3 and 360, maybe a little more PS3 because it's getting a good name as a BluRay player.

Apart from the easy question that the Wii will have the highest number of consoles out there, I find it hard to predict what will happen. I think they will all sell a rather lot, really.

 

[Paul_G]

1/ How & Why you arrive at this prediction.

I voted Microsoft/Nintendo. I think Nintendo will be marginally ahead, but it will be by such an amount that a good month for MS could swing it so i felt it best to call it a tie. Main reason for this is that Nintendo are selling far in excess of MS at the moment and I expect that to continue until at least after Christmas. I do expect Xbox sales to pick up though, both due to the time of year and the stream of decent titles hitting the shelves for the next few months.

2/ How software attach rate will fill out this year.

Nintendo will continue to see average attach ratios through to next year. There aren't, to my knowledge, too many compelling titles this side of Christmas and this will show in no more than a 1 game increase at best.

Microsoft stand to see the greatest gain, both due to the willingness of the current market to invest in new titles and the sheer amount of them coming. I would expect most 360 owners to buy at least 1 title, and probably more.

Sony will pick up slightly due to some decent releases coming in the next few months, beginning with Heavenly Sword and Warhawk.

3/ In your estimation, will there be a further change in market leadership in 2008? 2009? (i.e. 'Console A' will be #1 in 2007, but 'Console B' will be #1 in 2008).

I do think there will be a change. In my opinion, the massive sales of Wii will start to wane by the middle of '08, by this point I expect it to be at least a couple of million units ahead of 360. I expect 360 to start clawing that back through '08 and '09 to be in the lead by the end of '09. The reason I think Wii will start to decline in sales is that a lot of the people who are buying now, imo, are people like a friend of mine. She doesn't own a Wii yet, but she has used one and had told me she really wants to get one soon. However most of the reason for this seems to be because it's something new and different. Once Wii becomes a little less exciting and different, i think it will see a bit of a sales drop.

4/ What has propelled Wii sales?

See above. Beyond that though, I think it is just the latest thing everyone has to have. Severe lack of supply early on only made it more desirable, and many people are still being caught up in the momentum. Like all latest things though, it can't last forever. Something new will come along and the Wii will lose some of it's appeal.

5/ What will be the major forces and markets driving the market in general, and each console individually, over this holiday period? Beyond this holiday?

In the run up to Christmas, I think we will see many of the same forces in effect today. Strong Wii sales, strong 360 software sales and lackluster PS3 sales in general. I don't see anything to change those things, except the possibility of further PS3 price cuts and I don't see that as very likely, at least in the US. In the UK/Europe, a price cut may be on the cards, which could improve things, but generally things will continue as they are.

Longer term, i can see a price cut for PS3 being a bigger boost than it would be for either other console. Wii is cheap enough that most people who are interested will pay the asking price, and 360 was just cheap enough to tempt most people dead set on getting one. The recent price cut will have caught others who were waiting. I think there are probably quite a few people holding out for a $400 PS3 though, and a price cut to that point will see sales increase nicely. However I don't see it being enough to overhaul MS, and I also think the market that gave Sony sales in excess of 100 million units will either jump ship to the 360 when it becomes cheap enough, which it almost certainly will at whatever price point compared to the PS3, or they will buy into the Wii, which seems to be the machine for casual gamers.

6/ Who will be leading in each region? Any significant changes?

I don't see any major changes by end of CY '07, but i expect Wii to continue closing the gap in the US and Europe (albeit not at its current pace), and extending its lead in Japan. I think PS3 sales will continue much as they are in Europe and US and 360 sales will improve in the US due to games like Halo 3, and remain much the same in Europe.

7/ Other

I pretty much agree with what Alphawolf said for this section, especially his final comment. I think this generation will be unlike the last couple, and things will be pretty close. It really is a good time to be a gamer, with a solid offering for almost every taste

 

[Cryect]

That would be the ultimate smack down... wow. Would Nintendo be so cruel?

They've been routinely doing it in Japan with the DS which has been almost continuously almost sold out in Japan and right at holidays or big game releases there is a huge surge in DS supply with DS sales at a much higher level than possible at previous supplies. Which is why there has been some question has Nintendo reached a higher production level and just been stockpiling to ensure they keep their number advantage over the holidays when people are expecting them to slip back from under supply.

Edit: BTW I should have said I agree they aren't pushing substantially more than 1 million but that they are slowly improving the console supply (we've seen a nice improvement from the numbers they were pushing before but they are definitely not going to suddenly double supply).

 

[aselto]

Nintendo/Microsoft. Nintendo should be ahead in terms of installed base as they will sell everything they will ship this year, but Microsoft shoud have tremendous software sales (Halo 3, Mass Effect, Madden, Rock Band and others should be heavy hitters).

 

[infinity4]

I initially voted Nintendo but now i think X360 has more apps that can beat Wii at least in software sales, maybe hardware sales. Also note the fact that all X360s can scratches discs leads to some bubble in software sales.

Some questions:
3/ PS3 will grab some momentum with its strong lineup regardless of what its competitors do
4/ Marketing and Hype around the product
5/ First parties will be most important imo to lead their console lineups, then comes solid third party support.
6/ Wii in Japan, Maybe X360 in NA, Wii or PS3 in Europe