Pachter estimates Wii sell-through of 3.25 million units, easily outselling Xbox 360 and PS3 combined, which the analyst projects to have sold 1.35 million and 750K respectively during December.
"The long-awaited Wii production increase (which started in July) finally arrived late in September and we have seen significant increases each month since. We expect this to continue in December, with supply and demand in balance by early 2009."
Pachter's estimates are slightly higher than those of Jesse Divnich of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, which forecast 3.2 million in Wii sales.
Despite low consumer confidence at retail, Pachter forecast videogame console software sales of $2.63 billion, up 10 percent compared to $2.39 billion last year.
He noted that November only included two days of post-Thanksgiving sales versus nine days from the previous year. December 2008 had 25 post-Thanksgiving sales days versus 23 days in 2007.
Pachter predicted good news for the year ahead: "...November hardware unit sales were up significantly year-over-year, giving us confidence that solid performance in December is coming, and will be sustainable well into 2009.
"...We think that concerns about weakening consumer demand for videogames are overblown."
But while he said the industry is "highly recession-resistant,"he said to "expect more modest gains in December and into 2009 due to difficult year-over-year comparisons."
NPD is slated to release December data on January 15.
Top titles during December, according to Pachter, were Guitar Hero: World Tour, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2, Rock Band 2 and Wii Fit.
He said he expects 140 games sold over 100K during the month, versus 121 in 2007.
Pachter also said for 2008 he expects U.S. and handheld console sales to have hit 31.5 million units, up 17 percent year-on-year--an indicator of future software sales growth.