Yes, this marks the return of my analysis of 2008 as it progresses. But things will be a little different from now on: I'll only be updating it in its online form monthly (though weekly data will still be present). Other than that, it's the same assembled data I've been offering all along, consistently updated as VG Chartz numbers change and are added. You can get the data at the usual locations:
http://www.skyrender.net/2008_console_sales.txt (plain text version)
http://www.skyrender.net/2008_console_sales.zip (Excel spreadsheet version)
Software data for this week isn't present yet, due to the rather anomalous fact that the site still has not added it. But it's getting so late into the week that I thought I should release it soon, complete data or no.
This update is also accompanied in this very post by a little analysis of my own, which should only be taken as a suggestion of possibility, and not as a true prediction of what is to come (though it is as close as you're likely to get from me in that regard). As of the start of May 2008, the year is officially 1/3rd over. A brief observation of roughly the same week in 2007 should give us some idea of a general percentage of sales to expect for the rest of the year, based on the sell-through rates of last year. First, let's look at the raw data for console sales as of 27 April 2007.
27 April 2007 Sales Analysis
System / Cumulative Sales / 2007 Only
Wii / 6,662,408 / 3,702,759
PS3 / 3,160,138 / 1,927,495
360 / 9,620,985 / 1,661,101
DS / 41,748,428 / 6,858,455
PSP / 20,937,394 / 2,435,512
By taking the 2007 Only values above and comparing them to the 2007 Only values for the whole year, we can get a cohesive percentage of how many units were sold between January and the end of April for each system versus the rest of the year.
End of 2007 Sales Analysis
System / Cumulative Sales / 2007 Only / First Third Percentage
Wii / 19,239,504 / 16,279,855 / 22.74%
PS3 / 8,789,184 / 7,556,541 / 25.51%
360 / 16,030,069 / 8,070,185 / 25.06%
DS / 63,810,549 / 28,920,576 / 23.71%
PSP / 29,590,605 / 11,088,723 / 21.96%
Interestingly enough, the percentage hovers quite solidly between about 22% and about 26%, a very manageable range that can be effectively applied to sales in 2008 thus far. To wit:
26 April 2008 Sales Analysis
System / Cumulative Sales / 2008 Only / EOY 2008 Sales Best-Fit Range
Wii / 24,765,344 / 5,525,840 / 21,253,230 to 25,117,454
PS3 / 12,034,156 / 3,244,972 / 12,480,661 to 14,749,872
360 / 18,463,798 / 2,433,729 / 9,360,496 to 11,062,404
DS / 70,670,007 / 6,859,458 / 26,382,530 to 31,179,354
PSP / 33,451,063 / 3,860,458 / 14,847,915 to 17,547,536
Which would give us the following best-fit overall sales for 2008 (which we get by taking 2007 cumulative sales and adding the two figures above):
End of 2008 Future Sales Projection
System / Cumulative Best-Fit Range / Market Share Best-Fit Range*
Wii / 40,492,734 to 44,356,958 / 44.44% to 48.73%
PS3 / 21,269,845 to 23,539,056 / 22.94% to 26.32%
360 / 25,390,565 to 27,092,473 / 27.22% to 30.49%
DS / 90,193,079 to 94,989,903 / 65.68% to 68.13%
PSP / 44,438,520 to 47,138,141 / 31.87% to 34.32%
* - Market Share Best-Fit Range is determined by taking the lowest theoretical sales for the system backed with the highest theoretical sales for its competitors to find the low end, and the highest theoretical sales for the system backed with the lowest theoretical sales for its competitors to find the high end. As such, the extreme ends of the Wii, 360, and PS3 range percentages are not compatible with each other.
Of course, there are no guarantees that the sales will fit this projected distribution perfectly, but one thing that remains fairly consistent in the industry is the overall percentage of sell-through rate between the first third of a given year and the remaining 2/3rds of that year. It also reveals some interesting trends: the PS3 and 360 could potentially close the gap between each other considerably this year, the PSP and Wii could potentially end up having almost exactly as many units sold as each other, and it's very unlikely that the Wii will actually get 50% market share by the end of the year if overall sales trends continue as they have in past years.
On the whole, I don't expect that this analysis will remain entirely accurate come the end of the year. But as a best-fit projection based on current data, it does the job alright. Please do not take this as some sort of gospel of the future of the consoles; upsets occur in sales percentages quite frequently, and the general range of 22% to 26%, while narrow, is still a fallible range in a volatile industry such as this. As well, these projections are only valid when compared with the data available for January through April at the time of this post; any shifts in data due to new information by the VG Chartz staff will all but completely invalidate them.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
