Which console will see sales crash hardest in the coming weeks?

[koffieboon]

Just looking at home consoles I think Xbox 360 shows the most normal sales pattern in the holidays where in the Americas and Europe sales went up to around 4 times the sales of the period from the months before the holiday season. So I would expect 360 to go down to the level of sales in had during the normal months in 2007, with possibly an exception for the Americas. Those sales went up in August with the price drop and Madden release, and after that they never came down to under around 100k/week. I don't think they will be able to keep sales in the Americas of 100k/week, but they might end up selling around 300k/month instead of the 200k they were selling last year.

PS3 is a mixed bag for me. Sales in Japan are actually very low in my opinion. Doing 50k/week in December seems to indicate the PS3 will fall down to selling 10-15k/week in the normal months of the year again like it did last year. In the Americas PS3 is still doing quite poorly as well. The December sales seem to indicate sales will fall down to under 200k/month. If they keep it at that level it will at least be doing better than last year, but it has yet to prove it won't fall down even further to close to 100k/month in the US.
However, PS3 did positively surprise me in Europe, I think it is doing pretty well there at the moment. The increase in sales there is much larger than in Japan and the Americas. It is now outselling 360 by quite a comfortable margin and I expect it will do so as well going into 2008.

Now comparing 360 to PS3 I expect them both to drop about evenly and worldwide sales will probably continue to stay close. PS3's increased sales in Europe will offset the higher level of sales I expect for 360 in the Americas. Worldwide sales will probably end up between 120-150k/week, a 75-80% drop off compared to the numbers for the week ending December 23.

Now to add Wii into the equation, at least for the next few months I expect Nintendo to keep selling every console they make. Demand in the Americas is still bigger than supply and quite a few people who weren't able to find one this Christmas will be picking it up in the coming months. Of course the release of SSBB will also help the Wii to keep its momentum going. In Japan I expect Wii Fit to do for Wii what Wii Sports did last year, which is selling lots of Wiis at a very steady pace. Europe could be its toughest market, considering at certain countries it is trailing PS3, but overall it should continue to do well there as well. Only problem is that shortages were smaller there compared to the US, so leftover demand from the Christmas period will be smaller. Also no big title will be released in the current first quarter, so sales will probably go down in this region the most. All in all, worldwide sales of around 1.8M/month for Wii should be attainable for the next few months, which means weekly sales of around 400k. Compared to last weeks 1.45M that's a 70-75% drop off.

Basically this means all consoles will probably see about the same drop off percentage wise in the coming months. My Wii drop off percentage is a tat lower, but the 400k/week average does feel a bit optimistic, so taking this into account it ends in a draw.