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Forums - Sales Discussion - Wedbush Morgan: Wii to lead Feb. sales, PS3 stabilizing (NA)

mrstickball on 12 March 2007

Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter has predicted a 20 percent rise in game sales for February's upcoming NPD U.S. charts to $415 million, on continued strong sales of Guitar Hero II as well as MLB 2K7, Virtua Fighter 5, and Crackdown. Ahead of NPD's results expected March 15th, Pachter says $240 million of the sales figures will be contributed by new platforms (PS3, Wii, 360, PSP and DS), showing a 141 percent rise over 2006, with current generation software sales falling 29 percent to $175 million. Pachter has also predicted the Wii will once again outsell the PlayStation 3, with 350,000 units predicted for Nintendo's console and 200,000 units for Sony's own. The PlayStation 2, however, will likely see continued strong software sales, says Pachter, of as much as $120 million, reflecting only "modest year-over-year declines (approximately 20%) for the first half of 2007." Pachter expects that PS3 sales will stabilize at 50,000 units per week "now that consumers are aware of the supply situation (we have seen modest advertising recently)," which might increase as more game titles are delivered. He also has good hopes for Blu-ray content to drive hardware sales, especially with November's release of Spider-Man 3: The Movie. Also noted is that estimates include $70 million in software sales for the PS3 and Wii alone, based on a tie ration of 2.4 units per each system, compared to last month's 2.2 for the Wii and 2.7 for the PS3. The software sales will be driven, says Pachter by Guitar Hero II and other continued holiday hits, as well as top February releases including MLB 2K7, Virtua Fighter 5, Crackdown, and The Sims 2: Seasons. Though just five titles sold more than 100k units in February of 2006, Pachter says he expects seven to do so this month, down slightly from 10 in January. Pachter concludes by saying that he expects the December quarter results and strong holiday and January sales to continue through the March quarter, with recent weakness in publisher stocks due to uncertainty more than performance, as well as anecdotal evidence of poor PS3 hardware sales, and adds that "investors should remain comfortable owning video game publisher stocks." POSTED: 07.43AM PST, 03/12/07 - Brandon Boyer - LINK
Patcher is the dumbest guy to be an analyist. However, WM does get info from NPD a bit sooner. It places Wii @ 350k, and PS3 @ 200k. It also has Guitar Hero, Crackdown, MLB2k7, and VF5 for 100k sellers. There's no mention of Zelda: TP, Gears of War, Wii Play, Sonic & The Secret Rings, or SSX Blur. Also dissapointing is the 2.4 tier ratio for the Wii/PS3. IMO thats still horrible. The 360 is @ 5.0 right now, and in Feb. last year, it was still at 4.0~4.5. Providing the numbers are right, that'd put the 360 at around 265~270,000, as the PS3 and Wii are following January trends minus 20% for the 1 less week. Software sales seem to be severely lacking, except for GH2 and Crackdown, which should do well. Strange times indeed. Febuary should be very somber for all the software sales. It's absolutely no suprise that the Wii did around 350k (supposedly), as that'd show that Nintendo can ship around 85k units to the US per week (compared to 60-70k to Japan)



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Erik Aston on 12 March 2007

Pachter usually overestimates in my experience. And I don't understand how there could be only 5 100,000 selling games, unless quite a few new releases severely underperformed, and quite a few holiday releases fell off rather quickly. I'll wait until Thursday.



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mrstickball on 12 March 2007

Typically, he has a bad track record of overestimating. I really question how there could be only 5 100k sellers, since GOW still sold nearly 1/4m units in January. GH2 is no suprise, but still...5 is horrid.



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TheSource on 12 March 2007

Patcher said he "expects seven to do so this month {Feb}, down slightly from 10 in January". 5 sold 100,000 last month ("Though just five titles sold more than 100k units in February of 2006").



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Stromprophet on 12 March 2007

mrstickball said: Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter has predicted a 20 percent rise in game sales for February's upcoming NPD U.S. charts to $415 million, on continued strong sales of Guitar Hero II as well as MLB 2K7, Virtua Fighter 5, and Crackdown. Ahead of NPD's results expected March 15th, Pachter says $240 million of the sales figures will be contributed by new platforms (PS3, Wii, 360, PSP and DS), showing a 141 percent rise over 2006, with current generation software sales falling 29 percent to $175 million. Pachter has also predicted the Wii will once again outsell the PlayStation 3, with 350,000 units predicted for Nintendo's console and 200,000 units for Sony's own. The PlayStation 2, however, will likely see continued strong software sales, says Pachter, of as much as $120 million, reflecting only "modest year-over-year declines (approximately 20%) for the first half of 2007." Pachter expects that PS3 sales will stabilize at 50,000 units per week "now that consumers are aware of the supply situation (we have seen modest advertising recently)," which might increase as more game titles are delivered. He also has good hopes for Blu-ray content to drive hardware sales, especially with November's release of Spider-Man 3: The Movie. Also noted is that estimates include $70 million in software sales for the PS3 and Wii alone, based on a tie ration of 2.4 units per each system, compared to last month's 2.2 for the Wii and 2.7 for the PS3. The software sales will be driven, says Pachter by Guitar Hero II and other continued holiday hits, as well as top February releases including MLB 2K7, Virtua Fighter 5, Crackdown, and The Sims 2: Seasons. Though just five titles sold more than 100k units in February of 2006, Pachter says he expects seven to do so this month, down slightly from 10 in January. Pachter concludes by saying that he expects the December quarter results and strong holiday and January sales to continue through the March quarter, with recent weakness in publisher stocks due to uncertainty more than performance, as well as anecdotal evidence of poor PS3 hardware sales, and adds that "investors should remain comfortable owning video game publisher stocks." POSTED: 07.43AM PST, 03/12/07 - Brandon Boyer - LINK Patcher is the dumbest guy to be an analyist. However, WM does get info from NPD a bit sooner. It places Wii @ 350k, and PS3 @ 200k. It also has Guitar Hero, Crackdown, MLB2k7, and VF5 for 100k sellers. There's no mention of Zelda: TP, Gears of War, Wii Play, Sonic & The Secret Rings, or SSX Blur. Also dissapointing is the 2.4 tier ratio for the Wii/PS3. IMO thats still horrible. The 360 is @ 5.0 right now, and in Feb. last year, it was still at 4.0~4.5. Providing the numbers are right, that'd put the 360 at around 265~270,000, as the PS3 and Wii are following January trends minus 20% for the 1 less week. Software sales seem to be severely lacking, except for GH2 and Crackdown, which should do well. Strange times indeed. Febuary should be very somber for all the software sales. It's absolutely no suprise that the Wii did around 350k (supposedly), as that'd show that Nintendo can ship around 85k units to the US per week (compared to 60-70k to Japan)
I agree with you slightly Mr. Stickball, thogh you be a Box fan and I a Sony one. Wii and PS3 attach rates could be higher. I think Mr. Practhers numbers were high last time so they may be high this time. IMO falling below 200k units for February would be bad for PS3. I've never said that about any of their sales thus far. That's a mental area they can't be in. Well, maybe but only once or twice. I think the 360 fell below 200k but that was mainly because of shortage of units. Looks like the Wii is cooling off. Wii sales went down to 60k last week in Japan. I like a lot of people here thought the Wii would be able to surpass the 360 in sales this year but I don't see that happening now. I see Wii having about 300-400k more a month than 360 right now world wide and that would take 10 months to close the gap with current number which would be the beginning of next year. But with Halo 3 coming out 360 is likely to get a big bump in Holiday sales.



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Kwaad on 12 March 2007

Nice to see these numbers. PS3 stabalizing at 200,000/month. That's not that bad for a console with no games. Wii selling out at 350,000/month. That's not bad for a console with more hype than any other electronics device in all time. Numbers are looking good for me, and my expectations. And in refrence to the 360 sales never dropping below 200,000. They had their supply issues, and the 'only next gen machine out' hype. I think it was march? or april? when they fixed their supply problems, but they also dropped ALOT of great games when they did that as well. March is the critical month for PS3.



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Alacrist on 12 March 2007

Seems about but i guess we will see in a few days. PS3 needs to pick it up if this true, and the Wii better do something beccause it doesn't need to slow for Nintendo's sake.



 

  

 

StarcraftManiac on 12 March 2007

Agree... March will be the foundation of a trend, Wii or PS3... If Ps3 doesn't pick up in sales we'll have to wait untill some BIG AAA Killer aps coming end 07 or 08. But with Big Wii games coming out in March/Apr like Paper mario The godfather (also on PS3) SSX blur Prince of persia and no more heroes coming in Juli, its going to be hard for PS3 to gain momentum and take no 1. Selling spot worldwide. Im guessing Wií will have advantage... Ending on top 07 unless Halo 3 makes a BIG BIG SPLASH ( Mario galaxy and metroid and SSB': Brawl will too btw...) And setting a trend for lower PS3 sales with moderate to slightly high sales when a killer app releases with a lower userbase... (i think im going to create a thread about that one...)



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Darc Requiem on 12 March 2007

I can not lend any credence to Pachter's numbers. I will not even speculate on them. He has been grossly inaccurate on several occassions. I shall wait for the real numbers to see release before I start to speculate.



Christopher_G2 on 12 March 2007

200k is actually quite fine for the PS3 right now. It has pricing issues and a lack of killer aps that are hurting it. Also as Pactrer explained people are just becoming aware of the supply in PS3 stock. As long as it never dips bellow 150k or so in the first six months of the year I think Sony has to be happy. Ultimately big systems selling exclusives and awareness of Blue Ray will be needed to really get the ball rolling on the system. If it's still selling 200k a month a year from now of course that would be a huge concern, but my guess is it will be around 300k a month by then, particularly if the system gets some kind of price cut. Also there was really no mention of 360 sales. I wondar if they'll top PS2 sales. April of last year was the lone month the 360 outseld the PS2. I don't believe the 360 will outsell the PS2 consistantly until late this year, but for Feb they could due to Crackdown and really no major PS2 release. PS2 will win in March for sure due to God of War 2. I think this does matter if these PS2 buyers, and PS2 owners that keep buying PS2 software, aren't be won by Microsoft and instead will end up buying a PS3 2 or 3 years from now. One thing is for sure, the Wii is going to be the best selling console for a while. I'd put the odds strongly in favor of it being the overall best seller for 2007 for North America. I don't think it will catch up to the 360, but that's too much to ask for in one year. After we finally get a surplus of systems and the initial hype has waned a little I can see a consistant 300k+ sales monthly until the holiday season when the family friendly, and gift friendly, Wii blows all other consoles away.