Analyst: As game sales rise, PS3 to lead
The video game industry is poised to make a rebound, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. The analyst also predicted that it will be Sony's PlayStation 3, and not the Nintendo Wii, that will lead console sales for the month, when NPD releases figures next week.
The PlayStation 3 Slim is helping spur console sales.
(Credit: Sony)"After six consecutive months of double-digit declines, we expect a return to double-digit sales growth (on video game software)," Pachter wrote to clients. "We forecast sales of $750 million, up 21 percent, compared to last year's $618 million."
It's a good sign that after months of decline, the video game industry is finally rebounding. That said, overall sales are still far behind 2008 figures.
PS3 victory?
But it's Pachter's next topic that might easily attract the most attention. According to the analyst, he estimates that September's NPD figures will show a "sell-through of 390,000 Wii hardware units (down 45 percent from last year), 350,000
Xbox 360 units (up 1 percent from last year), and 410,000 PS3 consoles (up 76 percent year-over-year), as the price cuts for all three consoles spurred demand."
Although Pachter said he thinks console sales will be "relatively flat for the balance of the year," he did say that the price cuts could "benefit the PS3 the most in coming months." Not only does Pachter believe Sony's console will outsell the Xbox 360, but he contends that it's possible that the PlayStation 3 will lead Xbox 360 sales for the rest of the year.
Another Xbox 360 price cut?
Pachter isn't convinced that the price cuts are over. He wrote to clients that "Microsoft has the ability to lower price yet again," but he cautioned that a more likely scenario would see the company offer a "more feature-packed Xbox 360 in early 2010 (likely with a 250GB hard drive) at the same $299 price point." It could cut the price of its console if "it begins to lose significant market share to Sony."
As interesting as they might be, Pachter's comments are purely speculation at this point. Look for the official sales figures to drop next week, when NPD makes them available.
Check out Don's Facebook profile, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Sony would sell 600% more PS3's if they lower the price to 199. Everybody can predict that but that won't make it possible for Sony to sell them today a that price but one day my predicted price will be the price of a PS3 console.
Umm, I doubt it. I think having BR is worth the extra $10-$20.
The sad thing is that M$ can easily drop the price of the Xbox more, as it isn't really worth all that much in parts. While Sony, at the new price, is probably not making much if any profit per console.
Good news on the game front though. I'm guessing this will continue for the well developed games at least. With the recession, the kiddies probably don't have the spending money to buy all the cr*p stuff that the vendors were pushing before. Now, they have to actually buy a game that is descent so they will play it longer than 2 weeks before moving on to the next $60 game. I think this trend will actually be healthy for the game industry.
One can only imagine that is now cheaper to make the slim, especially since it uses a .45nm CPU/GPU allowing further savings.
Sony has been stating all along they they would eventually take this generation in the end. Its looks like that long time strategy is coming true. The PS3 has out sold the 360 year for year, as in if you look at sales for the 360 in year 1/2 and compare that to sales of the PS3 in its first 2 years the PS3 has out sold it. That was before the slim/price cut.
The lack of BD is hurting the 320 and the lack of DVD playback is really hurting the Wii (meaning they would do better than they already are, and may actually have staying power if they had it as opposed to bottom shelf use)
I agree... and this is only going to accelerate more due to PS3's insistence on having better titles. The Xbox has long been touting quantity over quality... but with the economic downturn, the days of this are probably numbered, if not over.
The whole strategy of the big game publishers had been the quick and dirty port, with LOTS of marketing to extract the quick $60 bucks out of the rich kiddie's pockets. This why all the whining over the 'hard to develop for PS3'. That money stream has now run dry. Those same kids won't be able to just buy the 'hot' game they put up a lot of ads for to appease them for the next 2 weeks. They will now have to pick games they might actually want to play for a long time.... ie: think about their purchases, pay attention to reviews, etc.
Sony's strategy (while horribly communicated by their execs) was to build a long term system with advanced technology... and push the developers to really use it to make great games. A few developers have done this, and they have produced awesome stuff. More devs have been seeing this and are now starting to come around. This is really good for everyone! Gamers, Sony, and ultimately the good developers. It is bad for the big developers who just don't get it... and I will feel sorry for all the lost jobs at those places. But, wouldn't mind seeing a few of those places go out of business for their stupidity.
While I don't think Sony has handled the PR side of things very well... I applaud them for their longer term thinking... and hope it pays off for them. I think it will. To their defense, it is REALLY hard to think long term in a business today... as you have to fight the investors, public opinion, and journalists like Reisinger (who don't seem to get that short-term thinking IS the primary problem in the business world today). It will be interesting to see if he starts changing his tune if the PS3 continues the lead.
-to whom is this a surprise? consumers have been clamoring for a $299 PS3 and now that it's here that pent up demand is going to drive sales.
Now Sony really needs to step it up in the online experience - and where's my Netflix???
As someone who uses Netflix on both my Tivo HDs and my Xbox 360s, I can tell you that while it is great, it's certainly no substitute for blu-ray.
Let's ignore the quality difference, because while it is substantial we can assume the average home user won't care that much, but more importantly, there is a HUGE difference between streaming whatever content is available on Netflix versus being able to buy and own any movie that you want.
Netflix is great, but it's basically no different than any other on demand channel on Cable. (Most of the content on Netflix is Starz on demand, same content available through many cable providers, I get it through Verizon FIOS as well.)
Owning a disc is entirely different. Downloading and storing high quality video isn't really realistic yet due to capacity limitations. Until capacity increases substantially, the disc isn't going anywhere any time soon.
I have a 360, and PS3 connected to my TV. I can get Netflix on both via PlayON from a PC in my house. My 360 sits idle and needs to be sold. Its replacment, and MacMini will get Netflix, Hulu and much, much more and be a perfect compliment to my PS3.
It's an alternate, but no substitue.
Netflix HD streaming is here now on xbox and its the future. The another thing small thing that the XBOX has and it's called CONTENT.
So your statement is lame.
Sony owns more content than Microsoft, so it is easier for them to make their own content available than Microsoft does with other people's content. Of course Sony would hopefully offer other content.
And what will happen when we go Quad HD? Bluray can go 200Gb+ (TDK just showed a 320Gb version). Even with massive compression, a Quad HD film would probably use up most of the typically monthly download limit for most people.
Owning content and being able to use technology to dynamically stream it are two very different things. Hence why Netflix runs on Silverlight and partners with Microsoft not Sony. Sony want to sell Media - Microsoft wants to turn the Xbox into a services platform - the big difference why even if Sony does sell more units per month Microsoft wins the $$$ per unit attached war. With the ability to download games, stream 1080p content through netflix, listen to Lastfm natively through the console UI, and a host of other features Microsoft will continue to dust Sony in this regard.
I'll just say this - Sony = hardware company who is trying to become a software / UI / Experience company. Microsoft on the other hand is already there and been there for a lot longer.
This coming from a guy who has a 360 and cancelled my netflix account. The best/cheapest way to watch movies is blockbuster online w blu ray. We can also swap movies at the blockbuster down the street cause I hate waiting for stuff in the mail
If you could watch the streaming HD next to blue ray you would see the difference. But that may not matter to you, if you're happy with it then great, it's convience and cost versus quality. Everyone has different needs.
As for Quad HD, we're not there yet and I wasn't implying we were, though some manufacturers are claiming that they will start shipping next year. I doubt it. But when it does finally come Blu ray will have a much better chance of supporting it than trying to stream such content given how pathetically slow most ISPs are at upgrading their technology.
http://www.themediamall.com/playon/
The cost of PlayOn is cheaper than 1 year of Xbox Live. In fact they are running a special right now for $29 US.
Second the selection of movies on PSN is 10x that of Xbox Live.....um yeah that thing called Sony Pictures.
@Jessiethe3Rd you have NEVER used PSN its totally obivious. PSN probably has more games you can download onlien that Xbox Live. Many of the same arcade games are on both. I bought Battleflied 1943 online from PSN the same day it came out on Xbox Live. Just like some orginal Xbox games have come to Xbox Live, so have MANY Playstation games come to PSN for download.
Clueless.
PS2, 2000
PS3, 2006
PS4, 2012?? Following the trend its every 6 years, but I think this generation will last longer than that since developing games is becoming a much more expensive and time consuming job. Sony said their consoles have a 10 year plan, so that would make 2016 before the next one.
Seriously how many 360's have been bricked by updates? There have been many official stories, not blog posts from haters.
1986 - NES
1991 - SNES
1996 - N64
2001 - GameCube
2006 - Wii
2011 - Nintendo's unofficial machine.
What's funny is this report is from a MorganStanley. They've gotten their predictions wrong on everything since they started predicting things in the games industry.
The ease of modification to a 360 brings out tons of people to buy a cheap 199$ console, in order to avoide buying 60+$ games 30-40 or even 70 times over.
So for every 1 legit console with legit games, I would be certain to say that there is about 2-3 other consoles bought and modified out there. Heck people have bought 1 console, plus another 2nd console to modify just in case the 2nd one should be banned from XBL..
Secondly, the aspect of over 1M 360s (since 2007) that have been identified as having a RROD and being replaced, also adds to those sales numbers. Not all of the 1M+ but to say even 30% of that 1M+ are people who just sold their "broken" 360 on ebay and then ran to walmart to buy another one.... again adds to high sales numbers.
The PS3 did have some error issues and "yellow light" problems...but no where near as high and with the lack of PIRACY....well some people don't want to pay for all the games they can play so they just won't buy the system.
If for whatever reason, the PS3 gets hacked, like the PS2 or PSP was...you'll start to see those numbers take off. But then again you also note the sales numbers for BR-Disc Burners take off as well.
just my 2c.
I just dont see 360 hacking amounting to very much loss in the grand scheme. Now the PSP or DS, dam I dont know how they make any money on games.
Well you sum it up for those that steal games, strange they send alot of monies for a mod system but dont ever want to pay for games? If someone cant afford it dont buy it?But these days people want everything and then pay nothing for games? Just like computer programs, they spend 3000.00 building a system and steal the OS and LOL the anti virus program and 1000`s of others programs........whatever happened to parents telling their kids we cant pay that much so we cant buy it?
- by KRGretz October 9, 2009 3:05 PM PDT
- How can Sony legally restrict access to open internet websites like Netflix and Hulu?
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by Shinobi2099 October 10, 2009 8:04 AM PDT
- Sony doesn't restrict it. Hulu and Netflix restricts PS3 owners because they want them to pay through the nose for services like that. Sony wants to provide a FREE on-line service so I don't think netflix and hulu will ever jump on board for that.
- Like this
-
- by iowampb39 October 10, 2009 8:12 AM PDT
- I play Netflix, HULU, Amazon VOD, YouTube, and whole list of other plugins all on my PS3.
- Like this
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (62 Comments)Although they are nice to have, nothing compares to Blu Ray and Uncompressed 7.1 Audio.. my god.. the difference between that and streaming crap is incredible...