With the recent announcement that 3.8 million PS3‘s were sold during the holiday season, the future is looking very bright for the black behemoth. Many industry analysts, giving their predictions and forecasts for the upcoming calendar year, are giving the nod to the PS3; leaving its competitors, the Wii and the Xbox 360, in the dust. Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian, recently gave his predictions for the upcoming calendar year, with some very surprising forecasts.
“One key takeaway from the holiday period is that there is ample demand for console hardware at reduced price points. Not only did Nintendo’s Wii benefit from a reacceleration in unit sales at lower price points ($149 in many stores), but PS3 sell-through is improving and the Xbox 360 is maintaining momentum. While not surprising that the Wii disproportionately sold more units in 4Q, as it remains a popular gift item, the recently reported 3+ million units sold in December exceeded our expectations. However, we remain cautious in modeling follow-on Wii sales in 2010.
“For the year, we are currently modeling a 10% increase in PS3 unit sales, Xbox 360 unit sales down 5%, and a 20% decline in Nintendo Wii unit sales. There is upside potential to our estimates with further hardware price reductions. At this point, we expect the console-installed base to increase by roughly 25% to 70 million units, and above the 57 million console units installed of the last generation platforms at the end of 2005.”
Presumably, the potential fall in Wii sales can be attributed to a lack of interest in the hardcore gaming community, or the Wii, despite killing its competitors in the first three years of its existence, may finally have it its wall. The PS3, on the other hand, has a bright future. Sony is planning on concentrating the company’s 3D efforts entirely on the PlayStation 3. And with a further price drop in the summer, the console will look very enticing to undecided buyers.
Hopefully we will see Sebastian’s predictions come into fruition over the course of the year.
