| Sqrl said: @Lost tears of Kain, Rocket pig didn't prove anything. He gave solid reasoning for an argument but its far from proof. I tend to agree that it will break the 15m mark by end of year as my prediction shows but I think a competitive Wii and PS3 are going to hurt it a bit relative to its sales last year and I suspect it will be similar to last year and possibly on the low side of that. Which BTW, RocketPig was wrong about. Currently the 360 is sitting at 12.74 with the US already reported for the final week of October. Add in the 2.8m it did last year and the result is 15.56m not 16m which is a fair bit of difference considering we are talking about sales around 3m and that difference would be about 15% of that 3m. In any case, my main point is that while Rocketpig does make good argument its not proof. Its just a good argument, and he has definitely shown himself to be a worthwhile read even if you don't agree with him. |
I didn't prove anything because... Well, because proving a future occurance is impossible. For all I know, Nintendo moved out of Redmond because they are planning a tactical nuclear strike on Microsoft. Anything can happen.
I said 16m because MS hasn't reported the final week of October yet. The last week ended on the 27th, giving them four more days to sell a few consoles. That should add about 100k to their sales overall, putting them around 12.85m. Anyway, I wasn't arguing exact numbers, just approximations. I used 16m because anyone with a brain will agree that the 360 will beat 2006's holiday numbers and 3m is the low estimate for Nov-Dec in 2007.
One thing you're missing Sqrl is that if MS starts losing markets to Sony, they have the almighty price cut option behind them, something Sony has pretty much burned to a crisp in 2007. Next year, they're not going to have a lot of options to drop to $300 quickly while MS, if push comes to shove, could burn a little cash by offering $200/250/300 price points, which would drastically change the entire face of the market.
In short, I really think the 360 has turned the corner in the NA market and can tread water in the PAL markets, at least enough to make some real headway against the PS3. And that's what it's all about for MS. They can't expect to conquer the world right off the bat and I think they'll be happy with consistent growth through all the markets each generation, something they're slowly doing over time.
Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/
