6 month Launch Windows

[TheSource]

Now that 5 months of American data are officially in, I think it is time to compare the 360, Wii and PS3 data to Xbox, GC, PS2 in their similar timeframes.  I'm also going to project a few things about PS3 and Wii in April NPD (which will actually include part of May..)

First thing though..when looking at the Gamedaily.biz archives, I came up with these numbers (USA only):

PS2 - 2,128,885 (6 month average ~ 354,815)

Wii - 2,110,200 (5 month average ~ 422,040)

Xbox - 1,903,366 (6 month average ~ 317,228)

Gamecube - 1,569,328 (6 month average ~ 261,555)

Xbox 360 - 1,504,822 (6 month average ~ 250,804)

PS3 - 1,188,700 (5 month average ~ 237,740)

 

Predictions for month 6 PS3/Wii

- Even with Motorstorm, PS3 March sales dipped about 5,000 per week on a week to week average.  With no software as big in April for PS3, and GH2 for 360 and Super Paper Mario for Wii selling strongly, PS3 sales should fall further.  This will seem worse because March was 5 weeks, and April will be 4.  I expect sales around 20-23k/week for 4 weeks.  I'll say another 90,000 will be sold, bringing the PS3 6 month total to 1,278,700 (6 month average ~ 213,317).  I actually believe the 90,000 will be appear better than it seems - because I am in the minority in believing Sony - they probably were supply contstrained in late March/early April when they had to ship an enormous number to Europe/Pal.  Therefore, most of their sales will be in mid-April when US stock levels normalize again, before dropping sharply in late April once Europe is down (up?) to US/Japan levels (of availability) .

- It seems Nintendo stopped shipping Wii's once they realized they met their target.  With increased production, and some extras arriving in early April from March, Wii sales are likely to be slightly higher in April than in March.  However, with Nintendo still shipping more (temporalily) to Europe to offset the PS3 launch, and to Japan, for Golden Week, I expect American sales to be 70-75k/week for four weeks.  Thus it will seem Wii demand is dying down, even though if the month was 5 weeks, sales would 350-375k - over 100k higher than the earlier month.  I'll say 300,000 Wii's will be sold in April.  That will bring the 6 month total to 2,410,200 (6 month average ~ 401,700) 

Quick notes:

PS3 is tracking below Gamecube in the launch window.

Wii is tracking above the essentially perfect PS2 launch...

Xbox 360 had similar launch window numbers to GC, but will likely do numbers higher than those need to double the GC USA user base.

PS2 had the best launch, PS2 sold the best.  Xbox had the second best launch, it came in second. GC had the third best launch it came in  3rd.

Wii already has guarenteed itself the best launch, while PS3 has perhaps a 1/25 chance of besting the Xbox 360 launch.  It seems all but impossible for Wii to not hold onto second, at least.

Finally, digging back even further, 2 million units in the USA in 6 months seems to be an all but guarentee of very nearly hitting, or passing 20 million (at least since consoles launches in the mid 90's).  This can be seen with N64 (2.0 million+ 6 months), Xbox (not quite 2 million in 6, but it likely would have hit 20 million with a longer lifespan in the USA), and PS2.  The only exception seems to be PS1 - which used an enormous period of little competition to ramp up.