| TheSource said: I never really understood the whole "we'll get new consoles from Sony and Microsoft in 2014 or 2015" thing. Sony sold over 4m consoles in the US every year from 1997 through last year. There is the distinct possibility that they'll sell under 4m in 2012, they'd only have to decline 20% vs. 2011, and they appear to be down 45% so far. Imagine if PS3 fell to 3.5m in 2012, and then 2.5m in 2013 as Vita flopped (not saying it will - but its possible), and PS4 didn't release - how the hell would SCEA even operate - particularly with the price of software, the volume of software, and the price of hardware all coming down? It isn't hard to imagine, without PS4 in 2013, Sony selling say, 2.5m Vita, 2.5m PS3, 0.5m PSP - those are not good numbers in absolute or relative terms when Sony has spent 1997-2011 selling 4-11m systems in the US per year. The US market is going to need PS4 pretty soon. Nintendo and Microsoft are in different positions, Microsoft can afford one or several bad years while it waits out an opportunity. If X360 was down 30% all year they'd be at 5.1m in 2012 - certainly a solid number - but they'd probably like to hold console sales at over 5m in the US if possible (X360 did 4.6m-4.8m from 2007-2009 in the US) which bodes well for a new Xbox next year, possibly early 2013 even. Nintendo looks like it should recover fairly well in the US by 2013 after a down two years. Even 2012 might be decent, say 6m 3DS, 3m Wii, 2m Wii U, 2m DS - those aren't 2008-2009 figures but they're not dramatically off 2006 / 2010 when Nintendo's portable and console business weren't completely in sync. By 2013, they could be up to 10m 3DS, 6m Wii U, 1.5m Wii, 1m DS, almost comparable to 2008-2009 if they handle it well enough. |
If the 150k - 250k figure is true the 3DS certainly isn't trending for a 6m year. It was out for 10 months of 2011? With a drastic price cut for 5 of them, and hit 4m for the year. If the 3DS is around say 200k, in the middle of that figure, I can't imagin what it's going to be like in the middle of summer. They'll need a redesign to think about hitting 6m this year IMO.
Wii is gonna fall sharper than 1.5m as well, and I doubt Nintendo is even going to forecast 4m WW for DS in 2012, let alone 2m in US.
