PS3 won't beat Wii until 2011, forecasts analyst
Xbox to peak the year before
This year will see another gruelling sales showdown between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as they battle it for hardcore gamers' cash. However, the PS3 is eventually expected to become the dominant console.
Market watcher iSuppli this week predicted that the PS3 will sell 10m units globally during 2008, helping to put it far ahead of the analyst’s 7.5m sales figure forecast for the Xbox 360 this year. iSuppli also predicted that by 2011, the PS3 will have a global installed base of around 38.4m consoles, compared to just 32.3m units for the Xbox 360.
However, both units will face stiff competition from the mighty Wii. iSuppli believes that the console’s strength lies in its broad mass-market appeal, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 are aimed at hardcore gamers.
iSuppli predicts that, by 2011, the Wii will be in second place with an overall 34.8 per cent market share. The PS3 will be triumphant with 35.4 per cent, while the Xbox 360 will trail into third place with a 29.8 per cent share.
Console Installed Base Totals
Totals in millions of consoles
Source: iSuppli
The PS3's trajectory over the coming years is entirely upward, but both the Wii and the Xbox 360 will peak in 2010, with their installed base totals falling after that, iSuppli indicated.
That's presumably a result of the arrival of future-generation consoles but also because by that point more people will be chucking out old machines than there are latecomers buying new ones.
The Wii's installed base will this year exceed that of the 360, but it'll take the PS3 two more years to do the same - which is good news for Microsoft.
Sony won't surpass Nintendo by the same measure until 2011, and then only by a small margin. So the Wii is going to enjoy a substantially bigger installed base than its rivals for the next three years.
Recent figures from rival analyst NPD revealed that January’s US video game sales were $1.18bn, but that the PS3 only managed to place one title within the top ten list of games: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It sold 140,000 copies in the US last month. However, games on the Wii and Xbox 360 dominated the chart, with the latter accounting for 330,900 copies of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
This week, UK market watcher Chart Track published figures showing the PS3 had surpassed the 1m sales mark in 46 weeks. However, the Wii managed it in just 38 weeks.
COMMENTS
@Thomas
"if quality wasnt the issue, then why have people bought dvd titles they already have on tape?"
Space.
Though it's far more likely a case that "the majority" who bought DVDs, never bought many VHS and wouldn't have been replacing DVD. Most rented VHS. The sales market was huge with DVD though, mostly down to convenience and eventually down to price competing with the rental market.
Of course us movie geeks will have bought for quality also, but that wasn't the biggest driving force for moving from VHS to DVD. I have to admit a big reason for me buying DVDs was to clear out the shelves and make more space.
The move to HD is more tricky when most people have (or will have) TVs that are a little on the small size to really make it worth going HD at all.
Not that I'm knocking HD. I love it. But if we're talking Joe Public and their little 28" telly (if that) in the corner of the room, I can see how they might think "what's the point". I mean, with a 40" TV I find sometimes HD isn't as staggeringly day and night as I assumed it would be, especially compared to upscalers.
Mind you, JP just thinks he/she has HD because the telly says "HD Ready".
I have a question.
What exactly constitutes a hard-core gamer? I've lived off Nintendo only (I believe only the Genesis offered any games that interested me (which I can now get on the Wii Virtual Console), and the other systems are way more expensive), and I've spent many hours in front of the t.v., all at once and in increments. Heck, I've spent 18 hours straight to complete some games, on more than one occasion.
What does doubling as a media player have to do with being a hard core gamer? What do graphics have to do with being a hard core gamer? I'm sure there were hard core gamers in the NES and original DOOM eras. What do rated-M games have to do with it? I'm just very confused... Probably as much as Paris.
Wii doesn't care
The fact is that none of the analysts correctly predicted the Wii sucess, furthermore they didn't pick up on the fact that Nintendo was ditching the old NES business model, (still the core of Sony's stategy) despite the fact that Iwata and others were banging on about gaming reaching a crisis point and how things would have to change. I therfore would take any prediction with a large dose of salt- even if the graphs are pretty
Of course the Wii is a slightly improved Gamecube with a fancy controller -that was exactly Nintendo's intention and it means that they are making a packet on every console as well as on content (same as a certain white music player). As for the future it hard to see Sony recovering the lost gound as Nintendo have frightening scope for price cuts should the Wiii start to falter, and expect Nintendo to dominate the casual/ family market. That my hardcore friends is where the money is - think Disney.
I wouldn't bet on PS3
The Wii device incorporates next-generation technology that hasn't even begun to be fully elaborated upon, including the ability to immerse the user into a moving frame of reference and other modes of virtual reality that are both engaging and practical in implementation: http://wiihacks.blogspot.com/
By the time PS3 gets its act together -- in what? THREE YEARS?? -- Nintendo will have a second generation Wii with some kind of cheaper HD disc playing capability.
@Tim
12-20-something is who you think buy PS3? I have news for you, the average age of gamers is in the mid 30's. You know, people with jobs and disposable incomes. Since PS3 is the most expensive (arguably not so) of the current consoles, one wonders where 12 year olds would get the cash to buy one. School and college students 12-20 something) are not notoriously flush with cash.
Actually the way you described the category of gamer you want us to believe buys PS3 sounded more like a description of the typical Halo player on XBL.
Blu-Ray and PS3 are following the mold of the rather successful PS2 quite well in many ways. Blu-Ray will continue to be a boon for PS3 through 2008. Only when stand alone players fall below about $150 will the halo effect diminish. By that time the PS3 will have dropped in price again, and be much more attractive from a price, performance and functionality point of view without simply relying on the 'best/cheapest Blu-Ray player' marketing line.
