WW 25th march up!

[Michael-5]

Pineapple said:

Let's see what the X360 and Ps3 have to do to stay up YoY in Q2, then. I'll toss in the Wii too.

Quarter 2 sales for the 13 weeks ending 3rd July 2010:

Wii: 2736k (210k/week)
Ps3: 2235k (172k/week)
X360: 1691k (130k/week)

Let's compare those to the 2011 sales so far. First, the ones for the entire year up to now

Sales for the 10 weeks ending 19th March 2011

Wii: 2356k (235k/week)
Ps3: 2531k (253k/week)
X360: 2250k (225k/week)

Now, that includes the end of the holiday boost, so let's ignore January. Sales for the 7 week ending 19th March 2011:

Wii: 1323k (189k/week)
Ps3: 1530k (218k/week)
X360: 1385k (197k/week)

Now, Q2 sales tend to be lower than Q1 sales, mostly due to not having the end of the holiday season (so they shouldn't drop that much from the February and out nmbers). But a drop of 21% for the Ps3 and 34% for the X360 just seems unlikely to me.

I'd say they're both likely to drop by around 20% for the average of Q2 compared to Q1 (higher at first, slightly lower at the end), meaning Ps3 sales of around 175k/week and X360 sales of around 155k. The Wii will most likely average around 150k.

I see a Q2 with the Ps3 even YoY, the X360 up 20%, and the Wii down 28%.

After Q2, I thus see the Ps3 being down around 250k YoY (~ 6%), the X360 up around 700k (18%) and the Wii down a bit.

From there on in, the Ps3 performed quite lackluster last year, so it could without too much trouble tie those sales, while the X360 should be down a bit in Q3. In that quarter, the 360 averaged 200k and the Ps3 180k.

The holiday quarter will be nigh impossible to predict, but both the X360 and Ps3 look to have (roughly) as good a combined Q1-Q3 in 2011 as they did in 2010. The Ps3 possibly down a bit, and they X360 most likely up a bit.

I agree  with some of your conclusions, but not your method of analysis. I don't think it's proper to compare spring 2010 sales with winter 2011 sales. None of the consoles will hold sales as strong as last last 2 months, they will all continue to drop slowly until September hits.

However applying the scaling set this year would be appropriate. So Wii down 34%, PS3 down 9%, and 360 up 17%. Applying that to Q2 2010 figures we would see Wii selling an average of 138.6k weekly, PS3 selling 156.5k weekly and 360 selling about 152.1k weekly. However you data included 360 Slim launch, which will likely reduce the ratio for 360, so anything between 135k to 150k would be appropriatr for 360.

IMO for Q3 PS3 sales will continue to be about 10% below 2010's figure and 360 will likely be about the same. Except for the weeks 360 slim launched in various regions, PS3 and 360 sold about equally well in Q3 prior to Move. So I would expect both of them to sell about the same Q3. 360 will likely begin to pick up in September when Gears 3 is released, but now until September I expect PS3 and 360 to be in a statistical tie, or with 5% sales of each other.

After that, who knows what could happen. Without a price cut, PS3 could see sales as low as 15-25% down YoY. 360 should be less because Kinect will push consoles in September/October for 2011, and second generation Kinect sales will likely be strong. Without a price cut, I'd expect 360 sales to be down 10-20%. This would imply PS3 annual sales between 10.8 and 12.3 million, and 360 sales roughly between the same region of sales (10.8 and 12.25 million).

However I think both consoles will get a price cut of about $50 or so, and it will boost both console sales equally. I think a small price cut will add 2 million annual sales, so a range of appoximatly 12.8-14.3 million sales for both the PS3 and 360 seem likely to me.

That's my opinion, regardless of which console sells better, I con't see the difference being too massive between the two.