| Pachter Predicts PS3 Outsold 360 in July But DS and Wii remain on top |
| Ahead of the July video game sales data from The NPD Group, which is expected on August 23, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter has issued his usual preview report, suggesting U.S. software sales of $425 million, up 12.5% compared to last year's $378 million.
His overall forecast includes an estimated sell-through of 450,000 DS units, 330,000 Wiis, 115,000 Xbox 360s, 160,000 PS3s, 205,000 PS2s, 225,000 PSPs, and 85,000 GBA units.
It should be noted that if Pachter is right, this would be the first time that the PS3 outsells the Xbox 360. "We expect a bump in PS3 hardware and software sales due to the PS3 price cuts. Sony stated that sales of PS3 approximately doubled after the price cut, with sales before the price cut averaging 20,000 units per week," Pachter noted.
He added that the recent warranty issue for the 360 likely had a negative impact but that it's only a short-term speed bump in the road for Microsoft: "We have forecast a month-over-month decline for Xbox 360 hardware sales, due to the warranty issue announced in early July. We believe that the announcement may have disrupted sales for a week or so, as consumers struggled with the meaning of the 'three red rings of death' issue. Now that the warranty has been communicated to consumers, the price has been cut, and (it appears) the design flaw that caused the high failure rate has been corrected, we believe sales will rebound."
Pachter expects July sales to be driven by new releases such as Activision's Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the '80s (PS2) and EA's NCAA Football 08 (PS2, PS3, Xbox, 360) along with catalog sales of Activision's Guitar Hero 2 and Nintendo's Wii Play and Mario Party 8. |
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