Games

Analyze That: Next Gen Will Replace Old Gen by 2011

Says DFC Intelligence

By Andrei Dumitrescu, Games Editor

2nd of June 2008, 23:06 GMT

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DFC Intelligence is a strategic market research and consulting firm that aims to present information regarding the evolution of the videogames market and the factors that shape it. In a new report out now they claim that it will take until 2011 for the current generation of consoles to reach the same installed base as the last generation. This is after the group initially said that it would take until 2012 for this to happen.

The previous generation of gaming consoles, which the group dubbed the "128 bit generation", is led by the still very successful PlayStation 2, a console that continues to get decent sales all

over the world. Until now, this generation of gaming devices has sold over 180 million consoles worldwide, most of which are still in operation.

Even with 2007 as a year that was better than predicted in terms of sales for the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii, it will still take until 2011 for these consoles to reach the same number of units sold as the "128 bit generation." And when we get there, the Wii is likely to be the console with the highest base of users, with the PlayStation 3 in second place and the Xbox 360 ranking third. The analysts at DFC Intelligence believe that, while 2008 will be marked by a very tight competition between the Microsoft console and the Sony console, 2009 will see the PS3 getting ahead of its main rival.

It also seem unlikely that any of the major players in the console market launch a totally new console design in the years until 2011. On one side, Sony says it is planning a ten-year life cycle for the PS3; on the other, the Nintendo Wii is successful enough not to warrant a replacement. The big question is whether Microsoft, which sunk a lot of money into the development of the Xbox 360, is ready to go even further, spending even more money on a better console to arrive before 2011. The analysts at DFC think this is not the case.

The report also mentions the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS, saying that they both brought in bigger sales numbers that the next gen consoles and that this shows the importance that handheld systems are having.

And, for all those that like to say that the PC is dead for gaming, the DFC Intelligence report has a bit of bad news, saying that "from a pure revenue perspective, the biggest system for software sales in 2007 was the PC, if you include revenue generated from online services." So, we might even see a decline of the console sales as the PC makes a triumphant gaming comeback.

TAGS:

PlayStation 2 | PlayStation 3 | Xbox 360 | Nintendo Wii | DFC Intelligence

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