Industry analyst Michael Pachter predicts that strong sales for the new PlayStation 3 Slim could give Sony their biggest holiday season yet, potentially outselling the 360 for the rest of the year.
September's NPD numbers drop next week, and more than one analyst is predicting that the PlayStation 3 will finally come out on top for the first time since its 2006 launch. Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter predicts that the PS3 sold 410K units in September compared to 390K for the Wii and 350K for the 360. Furthermore, he thinks the PS3 over 360 trend could continue until at least the end of the year.
"We believe that the recent round of price cuts may benefit the PS3 the most in coming months, given that unit sales last year were only 1.5 million for the September – December 2008 period. The Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 for the past 13 months, likely due to a higher perceived value proposition (the Xbox 360 "core" model was priced $100 lower than the PS3). We think that the PS3 will outsell the Xbox 360 in September, and may continue to do so for the rest of the year,"
Pachter goes on to predict a 250GB version of the Xbox 360 in 2010 to help combat Sony's increase in market share, and a potential price cut for the Nintendo DS Lite to $99 should the PSP and PSPgo start taking a larger percentage of the handheld market.
Of course Pachter predicts a lot of things. We'll see how accurate he is once the NPD numbers are published next week.
(http://kotaku.com/5377242/analyst-the-playstation-3-could-dominate-the-holidays)
