LTD Sales of Hardware

[TheSource]

Will Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony meet their sales expecatations in March and June? It seems Nintendo will end up exceeding their goal of selling 6 million Wii's by the end of March. I suspect Wii will be officially at 2.0 million to 2.5 million in the USA by March 31 (won't be confirmed until April 12 however). 2.25 million to 2.75 million in the Americas by March 31. Throw in 2 million to 2.25 million for Japan, and 1.75 to 2.25 for Others, and the range is 6 million to 7.25 million sold at the end of March for the absolute range. I say 6.5 million to 7 million is most likely (2 million Japan, 2.5 million Americas, 2 million others, give or take 100k in each region). I think they will have shipped between 7 and 8 million Wii's by March 31. If Vgcharts overtracks like it did in December (that damn CNBC estimate fucked everyone over), then sales will be much closer to 6 million. Perhaps even a bit below in Nintendo's official sales estimation. Still, with nearly 4 weeks of sales left in Japan (@ about 70k per week), Wii will reach at least 1.90 million on Media Create (low end), to over 2.00 million on Famitsu. Febraury I think will be surprisingly strong in America with Wii Play, Warioware, Zelda, Wii Sports, Sonic, SSX Blur doing their share to push the hardware. Another 400-500k for the continent. March will be around 400k since there are no big games...despite the longer time frame. That puts Wii at 2.5 million Americas. Europe is similar I believe, but with smaller numbers in March because of the PS3 launch, but strong Feb numbers. I believe Sony intended to ship 6 million PS3's by the end of March, and to sell 4-4.5 million of them. I expect they will have shipped 4.5 to 5 million PS3's by the end of March, and sold just north of 3 million. However, I think the range in sales will be 2.25-3.25 million sold. PS3 is now just over 750,000 in Japan. With no big releases for the rest of the month in Japan, it sells another 80,000. That puts it at 830,000. I think Sony will ship 1 million PS3's to the 'other' territories in March. They sell 800,000 of them. PS3 is at 1.035 million in the Americas through January. Motorstorm and Virtual Fighter 5 may provide weekly boosts, but not monthly boosts in the Americas. I think February could be very bad for PS3. Sales around 175,000 for the continent. March will be better I think because Motorstorm is much closer to a killer app than VF5..Sales around 230,000 for the continent. That puts sales at 1,435,000+830,000+800,000 = 3.065 million. Sony misses their original targets, but meets the targets outlined by Japanese anaylists recently (4.5 million shipped through March, not 6 million, 3 million sold through March, not 4.5 million) Microsoft recently announced they shipped 10.4 million 360's by the end of 2006. But then, shortly thereafter, they announced they only expect to ship 12-13 million 360's by June 30, 2007. In other words, shipping 2.6 million at most, over a period of 6 months (433,000 a month). Through January Microsoft was at 5.4 million in North America. 370,000 have been sold in Japan. 2.35 million were sold in Europe through 2006. At the rate of 20k a month in Japan, 360 reaches 445,000 or so for June 30, 2007. In North America, sales of a bit over 300,000/month for the next 5 months put the 360 at 7.0 million. Throw in 2.35 million through the end of 2006 in Europe, plus 175,000/month x 6 and you get 3.4 million 360's sold through June 30, 2007 in other territories. That would be 10.44 million 360's sold by the end of June 30, 2007. I suspect Microsoft intended to sell 10.5 million to 12 million 360's by the end of June 2007, so they should just about meet the low end of their expectation. Does all of this seem reasonable? I think it does. Best of all, it nearly fits the graph I made.