Here is the Lazard Bit from www.gamasutra.com Way to destroy my old thread.. In his latest note to investors, Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian expects the NPD's February software sales results scheduled to be released later today will show a 25-30 percent rise, driven by Xbox 360 exclusives Crackdown and Lost Planet, as well as Nintendo's Wii Play and 2K Game's movie inspired Ghost Rider. Commented Sebastian, “Today after the market close, NPD is scheduled to release February sell-through data for console and handheld software and hardware. Our directional forecast suggests that software sales could be up 25%-30% year over year, driven by incremental sales of next-generation software (Xbox 360, Wii and PS3) as well as solid PS2 and Nintendo DS game sales.” Other titles called out by the analyst as of particular importance to February sales include previous holiday window releases such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii and GameCube, as well as Call of Duty 3, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007, Rainbow Six Vegas, and various EA Sports titles. The analyst added: “We believe console hardware unit sales remained solid in February, with approximately 400k Nintendo Wii’s (still in short supply), 300k PS2s, 275k Xbox 360s, and 200k PS3s. We also believe DS handheld sales remain strong, while we expect Sony to focus more attention on expanding the PSP market in 2007.” Looking at individual publishers, Sebastian wrote that Lazard expects Activision's sell-through to be up by approximately 40 percent for the period, driven by sales of Guitar Hero 2 and Call of Duty 3. The group also continues to expect a “robust lineup” of titles from the publisher, including movie based releases Spider-Man, Shrek, Transformers, and Bee Movie, as well as sequels to Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, and Call of Duty. The group expects less positive results from major publisher and developer Electronic Arts, with results down 5-10 percent in February with releases such as NBA Street Homecourt, Arena Football, SSX Blur and MVP 07 NCAA Baseball. However, Lazard continues to expect a that the company's 2008 product lineup “should lead to a year of solid growth and margin expansion” for EA going forward. Finally, the analyst commented that THQ's February sell-through should be up nearly 40 percent, driven by strong sales of WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 and Cars as well as “solid third-party market share” on the Wii and Nintendo DS. Sebastian added that following a “very strong” 2006, the group anticipates “slower, but solid growth in 2007” for THQ, with new releases such as Supreme Commander, Ratatouille and Frontlines Fuel of War, along with sequels to WWE Smackdown, Juiced, Stuntman and Nickelodeon franchises. Lazard has maintained its “buy” rating for each of these companies, as well as for major retail outlet GameStop, as Sebastian explained, “We believe the fundamental underpinnings remain intact for healthy 15%+ industry growth in 2007. We also believe there is long-term upside potential in shares of software publishers and specialty retailer GameStop, with accelerating growth expected in the next-generation console cycle.”

New Google Trends Data ... Includes January and (maybe) February data ... http://www.google.com/trends?q=PS3%2C+Wii%2C+XBox+360&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all Personally I suspect that sales will match the proportions of the google trends graph ...

I think numbers should be in line with January ones ,as there hasnt been many reasons for a change .All the plattforms should be down 20% due to being 4 weeks instead of 5 .For games I think Crackdown must have done well but worse than Lost Planet the prior month ,and in the other consoles Virtua Fighter 5 and Wiiplay should be the leading games but not with big numbers ....Virtua Fighter 5 shipped the 20 (21 on shelves ) and Wii Play can be a good controller-seller but I doubt it will sell say 500K games ...

4-6 more hours...

I don't know that they are consistently high. Lazard is usually more accurate than Patcher, and Patcher had 350,000 for Wii...so you may want to reconsider just adjusting down from analyst expectations

As usual, these numbers come out just in time for me to not be able to post for a couple days. Curse this infernal "Life" I have. On the plus side, I get to see Pan's Labyrinth today, so I guess I shouldn't complain. And I'm really interested to see what the Wiiplay numbers will be.

When is supposed the PS3 to go up? I mean, are there any serious reasons (games) out there that are going to produce more demand for this console? When do the big games arrive?

Well february didnt see too much PS3 games until the end when F1 and Virtua Fighter 5 arrived .I think the march data should definitely improve the sales something ...games as NBA Homecourt ,Motorstorm ,Oblivion ,Armored Core 4 ,NBA College Hoops ,Flow ,Tekken Dark Ressurrection ,Dej Jam Icon ,Splinter Cell DA ....all come out in march .In any case actually outselling the other plattforms in unnecesary for the PS3 ,what it has to do is to create some ground for itself ,attract enough hardcore gamers to make it a viable plattform ,sell a lot of software (and without piratery this will be easier ) .....the masses will follow later when its price drops and the more casual games (Singstar ,Little Big Planet ,Eye of Judgement ) arrive .

Sony will be at 3 million or so in two weeks once the PS3 launches in Europe. After that, it will generally equal/outsell 360 on a worldwide basis I think.