14 DAY TRIAL // We're nearing the middle of April and that can only mean that the NPD Group is preparing to put out the sales numbers for March for both gaming consoles and videogames. And ahead of the figures coming out, industry analysts are hurrying with their own predictions related to the previous month.
Michael Pachter, who is an analyst with Wedbush Morgan, said that sales of videogames are expected to rise over the same period in 2009 by about 6 % to reach 840 million dollars. According to him, the biggest sellers would be Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the first person shooter from DICE and Electronic Arts, Pokemon with Heart Gold and Soul Silver, God of War 3, the PlayStation 3 exclusive from Sony, and Final Fantasy XIII from Square Enix.
Pachter also believes that the Nintendo Wii is set to post sales of about 540,000 units, which is 10% less than in 2009, while the Xbox 360 will see an increase to 450,000 with the PlayStation 3 from Sony right after it on 430,000. The race is much tighter than it was in March 2009 when the Wii was the runaway winner and the Xbox 360 was way above the PS3 in terms of sales.
Colin Sebastian, who is working for Lazard Capital Markets, is expecting to see sales flat or on the rise up to 5%, telling Gamasutra that “Wii inventories a bit better, PS3 still in short supply. One of the ironies in the video game industry is the short supply of console hardware - Wii and PS3 - even as sluggish sales trends persist at retail.”
Doug Creutz, who works for Cowen & Co., is more optimistic about March, saying that sales of console and handheld videogames will be up 9% but also revealing that April will see another fall year over year, with May and June then pointing the industry towards a more sustainable recovery.