Sullla said:
As usual, everyone overestimates the boost created by big releases. I've had to say it so many times, I should probably put this in my sig: "Hardware never spikes as much as you think for big games."  With that said, 360 and PS3 hardware WILL be up noticeably for the week of Grand Theft Auto (which of course is next week's charts, not this current upcoming one). I expect both to see something in the area of 30% rise, with perhaps as high as 50% as the extreme upper limit. But some of these predictions - 300k? 400k?! - are just lunacy. Fun fact: neither the PS3 nor 360 has ever topped 250k in weekly sales outside holidays/PS3 European launch. This is easily seen by looking at our weekly sales chart: http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii®1=All&cons2=PS3®2=All&cons3=X360®3=All&start=39047&end=39558 The 360's best was a 241k week for Halo release last year. The PS3's best was 228k last month on the week of 28 March, the debut of Gran Turismo Prologue in Europe. Clearly the release of large titles do increase hardware sales - they just create "bumps" on the graphs, not wild spikes upwards. And we'll see the same thing for Grand Theft Auto. There's a good chance that both the PS3 and 360 will top their previous non-holiday high marks that I mentioned above. But there's very little chance that they'll get anywhere close to 300k weekly sales (which would be an 80% increase for the PS3, and about a 110% increase for the 360!) The Wii has sold 5.251m units so far this year, across 16 weeks; that's an average of 328k per week. So as long as the Wii sells around its weekly average (which it certainly should do!) there's practically no chance that it will be outsold by either the 360 or PS3. You can't guarantee anything in the market, but statistically the continuation of Wii hardware dominance is extremely likely. |
This deserves to be bumped to the next page.
I would like to add a few things though. Halo 3's effect in Europe/Other wasn't as big as the effect on sales that GTA4 will be in Europe/Others. GT5:P effect in America wasn't as big as it was in Europe, nor as big as GTA4 will be in America. And since GTA4 is being released worldwide (minus Japan, where it won't sell very much anyway), it should have a greater effect for both consoles. So I think it's likely they'll manage 300k each (with higher sales for the 360 in America, and higher sales for the PS3 in Europe/Other).
At the same time, I actually think there's a good chance that the Wii gets close to PS3+360. In Japan, with Golden Week, it should get about 60-75k. In America, with the larger than usual shipments, not to mention Mario Kart, I think the upper limit could be as high as 350k, and in Europe/Other with WiiFit and the continued effect from Mario Kart, 200k isn't out of the question (as a high end of course), for a worldwide total of little greater than 600k. It really depends on how many units Nintendo ships (and it seems like they're shipping a good amount of them).
Either way, there's little chance that the Wii will sell less than 360+PS3 combined during April or May (according to NPD or VGChartz). So far for April VGChartz has Wii at 500k, PS3 at 186k, and 360 at 177k. Even at a normal week in NA for the Wii, selling 150k or so, the PS3 and 360 combined would have to sell 287k, a 150k or so increase combined over last week sales. So I think Wii will win NPD April, and most likely will still sell PS3+360.
As for May, WiiFit arrives in America, and the effect of GTA4 won't be as great as it was in April, so there's not really any question that the Wii will win May.
All in all, the question isn't "What if the Wii wins WW next week?" the question should be "What happens after the Wii wins WW next week, against the biggest game of the generation?"
