Sqrl said:
Sqrl said:
Week 6: The Battle Evolves Yet Again
- 360: As predicted by most all consoles are down this week in their worldwide total and equally expected is the fact that this drop would occur in the NA region. Interestingly though the 360 still manages to surpass its NA performance from the year prior and for the 6th straight week more than doubles last years EU numbers. Even Japan is about even this week (not that it makes much difference for the 360). This continued strength after the week of Black Friday would indicate that the 360 should easily continue this strong performance through the rest of the holiday and probably finish above the majority of predictions made prior to November for the end of the year. Regardless of how things play out the 360 should easily pass the 25M mark next week!
- Wii: The Wii similar to the 360 has seen almost a doubling of sales in the EU and NA also remains very strong this week as well. The JP numbers are down YoY but again this has more to do with the state of console sales as a whole in JP than anything else. Just like the 360 the Wii is expect to continue a strong holiday performance and in two weeks time we might be seeing a new single week record for the most sales on a single platform, and with the numbers for this week claimed the title for fastest console to reach 40M units sold!
- PS3: With the PS3 down YoY in EU, NA, and JP this week it seems to be unfortunately well positioned to finish its uninspiring holiday run. We can blame the situation on anything from price to economic issues and we can point to the recent layoffs at Sony in the hope that they are trying to correct it. But the truth of the matter is this trend is likely to continue through the rest of the holidays and probably into the early part of next year until a price drop or some sort of bargain/bundle is offered to get people interested again. For now the only race the PS3 is in is the one to reach 20M before the end of the year, and while I'm still optimistic it can reach that goal, it is sadly no longer a "sure thing", which I likely would have insisted it was 6 weeks ago.
PS - Feel free to leave your predictions, questions, comments, critique, ideas, etc...
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Quoting this for discussion, I'm curious what people think about the state of the console race, not just for the holidays but going forward, as a result of the current sales situation. What part of my analysis do you guys disagree or agree with and why? This is intended to be as much of a place for discussion as it is for getting information.
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For the Wii - It will only get better. I can see the Wii reach and sustain a constant 60% weekly market share next year. A strong Christmas will only increase their sales for next year. It will also shatter the records for a month both worldwide and in North America and reign supreme as the fastest selling home console for a long time, it may even keep that record for good.
Xbox 360 - The real question is will it reach 28 million? With a little discount in Europe helping to push the fence sitters over the edge into a purchase and continued strength in NA, it seems a strong possibility that a finish between 27.5/28 Million is extremely possible or you could say it is to be expected given the current strength of the platform.
The PS3 - Even if it sells exactly how it sold last year it will not reach 20 Million. As it hasn't scaled for Christmas like the other consoles it may struggle to reach much over 19 million by the end of the year, depending on how sales go in the next few weeks. One thing I am certain is that it will not reach 20 million this year. The other question is can it maintain its market share above 20%? The Wii is really bearing down hard on the HD consoles and as the PS3 is the weakest at the moment it is the one who is most likely to concede market share to the Wii.
