Analysts Expect a Strong January for Videogames

That period of the month when the NPD Group releases the sales numbers for the United States market is getting close so it's time for the analysts who are watching the videogames industry to pitch in with their predictions related to the way January shaped up for the various hardware producers.

The idea that seems to prevail is that the videogame sales in January will increase by more than 12% over the same period of 2008 to reach 690 million dollars. Michael Patcher, who is an analyst with Wedbush Morgan, says that “December sales were solid, even factoring the favorable calendar shift offset by the early effects of the recession.”

Hardware sales were strong in December 2008 but the trend in January is hard to predict because the supply of the Nintendo Wii, which has been stressed by the huge sales that it saw in November and in December, is low in North America. Still, Jesse Divnich from EEDAR believes that hardware sales, including all platforms, will increase by 58% over January 2008, while Patcher thinks that the increase will be a more modest 35%.

He even ventures so far as to offer a prediction on the specific numbers of consoles which will be sold. The Nintendo Wii is set to come in first place, with about 550,000 units sold, while the Xbox 360 will sell more than the PlayStation 3, by 275,000 consoles to 225,000. If the numbers are confirmed, it would mean that Sony can breath a sigh of relief after the Xbox 360 managed to sell double the number of PlayStation 3 sold in December.

EEDAR is saying that the PS3 will register a drop of 22% over the same period of the same year, with Sony continuing its steady decline. All sources agree on the fact that Nintendo will continue to sell a lot of Wiis and make a pile of money.