14 DAY TRIAL // NPD will release the October 4-October 31 numbers tomorrow, and most analysts agree that the five-percent growth in sales September saw won't be making a comeback. Electronic Entertainment Design and Research's Jesse Divnich and Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter took a fine comb and sorted through their previous projections. Now, they expect sales to drop by anything from nine to 11 percent in the month of October.
Pachter is the one that offered a more optimistic view on the situation, estimating sales of $697 million. The best-sellers of the month are expected to be Borderlands and Wii Fit Plus with 400,000 units, Brutal Legend with 300,000 units and the 150,000 DJ Hero units. Uncharted 2 and Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time are also expected to perform very well, but Wedbush Morgan does not cover Sony Computer Entertainment, so no exact numbers were given.
On the flip side, Pacther estimates that Wii sales will drop 31 percent from last year, down to 555,000 units. The Xbox 360 also sees a drop in sales, but a more moderate one of eight percent, down to 340,000 units sold. But the PlayStation 3 has no troubles with its sales, and the analyst expects the console to double its numbers up to 380,000 sold units.
Even with numbers for Uncharted 2, estimated to sell 601,000 units, Jesse Divnich estimates that the total of October sales will only amass $620 million. The next two on his list are Wii Fit Plus with 450,000 units sold and Wii Sports Resort with 325,000. One particular game he took interest in was Demon Souls.
"Demon's Souls is probably one of the most statistically relevant games released in the gaming world as it helps answer an often asked question: how much would a high quality game sell if it was supported by no mass marketing, released by a little known publisher (no offense to Atlus), and was a new intellectual property," Divnich said. "The answer is, about 30 percent less than the average in the Action/RPG genres." He estimates that the game will sell 100,000 units in October and 250,000 by the end of the year.
As for hardware, Divnich estimates the Wii to drop to 635,000 units, a ten-percent smaller drop than the one estimated by Pachter. The Xbox 360 will go down to 280,000 units, a 25-percent drop, and estimates say that the PS3 will have a total of 320,000 units sold in October. Divnich also took a closer look at the handheld market, and estimated that the DS would have 450,000 units sold, while the PSP only 150,000.