NPD Analyst Expects Over 600,000 Xbox One X Sold this Year; PS4, Xbox One, Switch Could All Win November
NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella thinks that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all have a chance to bring home a win in November in the United States.
The NPD is seen as one of the most authoritative sources of statistics for video games in the United States, and its dedicated Analyst Mat Piscatella had some interesting insight to share on the Resetera forums.
Firstly, Piscatella mentioned that the winner for hardware in the month of November is a coin flip situation. “It could easily be any of the three.”
Interestingly, he also mentioned that his prediction for Xbox One X sales was 600,000 units for this year, but now he feels that Microsoft is going to “blow past that” simply by manufacturing more units than he thought they would.
He also expressed an interesting point of view on the fact that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all doing well.
“Yeah I keep trying to think of ways of how I can write the notes that emphasizes everyone doing well (which is my current assumption, but who knows). If all 3 consoles have spectacular months, from a market perspective does it really matter which one sells a few units more than the others? No, but if I don’t note the leader then everyone loses their minds.”
Piscatella then mentioned that digital Black Friday sales from Sony and Microsoft are “Phenomenal” (if you’re wondering why he doesn’t mention Nintendo, the house of Mario does not share digital sales with the NPD), and retailers are already bringing deep discounts on software, so November should also be a “big month” for games, not just for hardware.
Another interesting point made by Piscatella is on the “narrative” that some attribute to GameStop, which would allegedly favor Microsoft and Nintendo due to recent comments on the performance of the Switch and of the Xbox One X.
“Why do you keep using the term “narrative”?
Switch and One X are the new boxes this year, so Switch will be up huge compared to Wii U last year, and Xbox One should be up pretty big year on year because of One X. PS4 could end up being the best selling platform, but spend might not even be up when compared to last year.”
Further in the thread, he was not charitable in describing that idea as absurd.
“This “narrative” that the leading games retailer is doing console warz and is somehow biased against Sony is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read on a message board or twitter. It’s truly Herculean on the scale of asinine. Congrats on that one.”
