Network now...NEWS
Activision's Full-Year Hardware Projections
During a Wednesday earnings call, Activision Blizzard offered its hardware install base projections for the full calendar year 2008 in North America and Europe.
Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith ran down what he expects to be the increases in hardware in North America and Europe compared to the previous year:
PS2: 4-5 million units
PS3: 8 million units
Xbox 360: 6-7 million units
Wii: 15 million units
Handhelds: in excess of 24 million units
He added that the install base of hardware in North America and Europe for current and next generation systems including handhelds stood at 291 million units as of September 30.
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\/ Are you seriously going to complain and get offended that much? Who cares about what and who said... The PS3 will only sell more once it gets to and bellow the 350/300 mark. There is no denial that it offers better hardware for the buck. The games are there, plus there is so much coming from first party! Anyhow there is no reason to slam the projections, they could be true, they may not be. So why take up a whole page to state your opinion how PS3 sucked! Did it really offend you that bad for him to shave off 1-2 mill of the 360?
The Xbox migh beat out PS3 this Christmas because they did lover the price after all... Otherwise it would of been hard to catch ground. W/O Price cuts the PS3 is selling good ( much better than last year ) imagine what it will do when its price drops down... Heck M$ already used their ACE in the hole.
...Projections...
One of the things that has COMPLETELY FAILED this generation has been the "projections," and the "estimates" from all the so-called expertes and "analysts."
These same people from Activision are the ones who originally said that the Wii would be a distant third place in terms of hardware sales. Yet the Wii ended up as the best selling hardware.
These same people from Activision are the ones who have continuously given far too much credit to the Playstation 3. They said the PS3 was going to be the most popular system when it launched, but that didn't come close to happening. Playstation 3 ended up as a very distant third-place in terms of worldwide hardware sales to consumers.
The fact is, it is a foolish idea to make speculations like this about hardware sales for 2008, considering that we are already to the month of November!...It is a much better idea just wait until December has come to an end to find out what happens. By the time mid-January gets here, we will know everything that happened. So, all we need to do is just wait about 8 more weeks and we won't need "estimates" from "analysts" with such terrible records this hardware generation.
Kim_Naroz said:
These same people from Activision are the ones who originally said that the Wii would be a distant third place in terms of hardware sales.
Have you got external proof of this? Or is this just another ramble on.
He won't reply. Kim posts and runs.
Projections have COMPLETELY FAILED? You mean like your September 9th projection that said:
"Xbox 360 will definitely outsell the Wii in North America...that much goes without saying"
Ouch...He's got you there Kim.
Justifying what you say with evidence and/or data is a lot of work, ya know?
Strange a software publisher would be crunching numbers for hardware predictions.....and then making them public.
Not really strange. Yes various markets are becoming more open platform but publishers/developers are always crunching numbers to determine where to allocate resources and to follow the trends. This is most likely why you see the Wii with so much shovel ware or non core games. Well, those casual games do go back to fund the bigger games IF the publisher is profitable in that arena.
It will be interesting to see the NPD numbers throughout the Holiday and to watch world wide sales of all platforms.
Oh i'm sure they acculumate this data for their own internal planning, but releasing it out to the public? Seems odd to me considering how many other marketing and research groups already do that ad nauseum. I've never read of other software publishers throwing it out like this, do they? Or is this just the first time Edge has reported someone doing it?
Possibly the first time Edge has reported it, or maybe first time you could have seen it reported. Not to question your Edge readership. I have read many other publishers predictions on console hardware. EA is one that comes to mind that has published their console sale projections.
I only read this online version of Edge so question away. Probably explains why this is new to me. Didn't know publishers did this with any regularity. Thanks for the info.
Oct, Nov, and Dec are the biggest months for platform sales so it's harder to predict than you think :-)
My guess is Q4 2008 makes up for 75% of all console sales for the year!
True. But I think consoles typically sell out during the holidays, and if you look at the last two holidays, they looked pretty much the same. I'd be willing to guess this is how it'll look, and I don't even work in the industry. The last 3 months will go like this
Wii- Crush everything
360- Will beat the PS3 handidly in the US, but may lose by a small margin in Europe but overall will outdo Sony in the two Markets combined.
PS3- 3rd place just like last year...and the year before...
Of course the DS and PSP (and PS2) will fit in there, but we're not talking about those at the moment.
But you're right, you can't always predict it. But you can get close just based purely on mildly intelligent guesses with a little research sprinkled in.
PS. Last sentence was a jab at myself by the way.
You can never underestimate PAL territories. Plus with the US Economy bombing, the EU could become a safe haven for the PS3. But the US will be, as it has been, dominated by the 360. It will be interesting to see how the price cut to the 360 plays out in Europe this Chris... non-denominational Holiday Season.
no way ps3 will outsell 360 by 1-2 million in 08. It's the luxury/expensive choice. The economy tanked in last half of the year. What are they thinking?
Well, as of September NPD numbers show the PS3 has the lead over the 360 in the US by a mere 160k units (I'm referring to 2008's numbers). Figuring the 360 will most likely make up that number and then some during the holidays the 360 will outsell the PS3 in the US for the 2nd year running (both years the PS3 has been available). But, the US is the only market where the 360 dominates the PS3 (with the strange exception of Japan the last 2 months). So with only a 200k-300k console lead the 360 will have over the PS3 at the end of December (in the US) I could see how with Europe's numbers factoring in that the PS3 will beat out the 360 this year. I do not have concrete numbers for Europe, but I have read that the PS3 does better over there than the 360 does. He did specify US and Europe. With only roughly 3 months left in the year, any one that can do simple math can figure out within 1-2 million how the race will turn out. He should have released his estimates in March, that would have been more impressive. That's like saying a team that is winning a football game by 30 points with only 5 minutes left will win the game by 20-30 points.
NPD numbers (US only) http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_Seventh_generation
Is he talking about what he expects for '09? If he's guessing for '08, I don't think that's too hard considering '08 is already into November.
I'm going to make my prediction for 2008 in December 31.
That comment had me rollin.
Yes, 2008.