Gamasutra has a lengthy look at a new report from DFC Intelligence discussing predicted hardware and software sales of the big three consoles over the coming years. Although the focus of the report seems to be about the viability of the PS3, DFC still manages to include a few nuggets about the Wii in there. For example, the group expects the Wii to break the console sales record for a single year in 2008. Not too shabby. The predictions for the PS3 are even more ambitious.
DFC Intelligence believes that the economic downturn will encourage more people to purchase game consoles due to the potential entertainment return. Thus, as the Wii Fit demand remains strong, sales of the Wii should continue to break records. As for the years to come, the group believes that the PS3 has the best prospects despite a slow start:
The sales performance of the PlayStation 3 has been less than stellar, but Sony has survived. The Xbox 360 was unable to take advantage of Sony’s struggles to build the type of large lead needed to maintain a long-term advantage. The PS3 survived the onslaught of AAA Xbox 360 titles that hit the market from late 2006 through 2007.
Halo 3 had great sales, but it did very little to enhance the Xbox 360’s overall position in the marketplace. The Xbox 360 is the system of choice for fans of high-action first-person shooter (FPS) games. However, for the 80%-plus of game consumers that DO NOT play FPS games, the Xbox 360 is not the system of choice.
It remains unclear to me how the PS3 is really differentiating itself from the Xbox 360 when it comes to the software library. As the 360 has captured that FPS market, that translates into a good segment of the hardcore market. DFC, thankfully, has other reasons to believe that the PS3 will continue to gain ground on the Xbox 360:
The Xbox 360 has a high software tie ratio, but given technical problems among many early units it also has a fairly high retirement factor. The Wii has both a lower software tie-ratio and a higher than average retirement factor. On the other hand, one advantage with the PS3 is its durability and what is expected to be a fairly strong software tie-ratio in the long-term.
By 2009, the PS3 should be on its way to surpassing the Xbox 360. And after that, the system is going to be eying the little white console from Nintendo hungrily:
For this reason, the DFC Intelligence forecasting model indicates that software sales for the PlayStation 3 will surpass software sales for the Wii in 2012. Of course, by this time, software sales for all systems are expected to be on the decline.
All of this speculation seems gross and, frankly, extraordinarily biased toward Sony. I still believe the PS3 will gain ground, but to claim it is going to become the dominant console of this generation seems... silly. The great part about a report like this for DFC Intelligence is that by the time 2012 rolls around, most people will have forgotten about these prophesies entirely.
Leave a Reply