Analysis: Console Shipments Through 6/30/2008 and a Look Ahead - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 30 July 2008 / 7,497 Views

Analysis: Console Shipments Through 6/30/2008 and a Look Ahead

Jacob Mazel

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo recently announced their financial results for the April 1, 2008 to June 30, 2008 quarter. Within the released data are lifetime to date figures for hardware and software shipments. To get a good idea of individual platform trends, and overall industry trends, the results have been divided up by company. After that, there is an overall look at industry sales, with an assessment of how well the consoles are doing.

Microsoft:

Xbox 360 launched worldwide in the quarter ending December 31, 2005. That means through June 30, 2008, the Xbox 360 has been selling in 11 three month quarters. In that time frame, Microsoft has sold 20.3m Xbox 360s to retailers (which we consider shipped). A little math suggests that the average shipment of Xbox 360s per quarter worldwide is 1.845m units, or about 615,000 Xbox 360s shipped per month worldwide. However, looking at Microsoft’s shipment figures shows that the median shipment figure is different since the mean is raised by two big quarters (those quarters are Dec 06’ and Dec 07’ which alone account for 43% of all Xbox 360 shipments).

X360	Sep 05'	Dec 05'	Mar 06'	Jun 06'	Sep 06'	Dec 06'	Mar 07'	Jun 07'	Sep 07'	Dec 07'	Mar 08'	Jun 08'
LTD Sh	0	1.5	3.2	5	6	10.4	10.9	11.6	13.4	17.7	19	20.3
Shipped	0	1.5	1.7	1.8	1	4.4	0.5	0.7	1.8	4.3	1.3	1.3

The median Xbox 360 shipment rate is actually 1.5m, or 500,000 shipped/month. Quarters above that are March 06’ and June 06’ when Microsoft was still catching up with demand, the Halo 3 & price drop quarter of September 07’, and the two post-launch holiday quarters December 06’ and December 07’. While Microsoft has not provided an Xbox 360 projection for its fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, odds are the September 2008 quarter will be split between the September 2006 quarter when there was no price drop, and the September 2007 quarter when there was a price drop and the Halo 3 ‘push’ of a few extra hundred thousand units. Since Xbox 360 is still cheaper than it was in 2006 in the September quarter, but isn’t getting a marquee release on the Halo 3 scale, Xbox 360 lifetime shipments should hit ~21.7m (1.4m in the quarter) through September 30^th . It doesn’t look particularly likely that Xbox 360 will see a real price cut - one where all the skus get cheaper - in this quarter since a new $349 sku (now with more gigs) is being introduced in August.

Moving forward from the September quarter, Microsoft might consider a ‘real’ price drop where they just flat out cut price on all skus in October, which could boost Oct-Dec shipments to over 5m, depending on their finances. If there is not an October price cut expect shipments for the final three months to be a bit down despite increasing sales in Japan as Xbox 360 saturates its price point in the west. Accounting for those uncertainties, Xbox 360 should end up at between 24.75m and 27.25m shipped worldwide by the end of 2008. If no price drop occurs in fall 2008, there will certainly be one in Spring 2009, which should push Xbox 360 to 28m shipped as a bare minimum through June 30, 2009, and up to 33m shipped through June 30, 2009 if a price drop occurs in both October 2008 and March 2009 (see image below). Regardless, Xbox 360 will be passing Xbox shipments by the end of 2008, and Microsoft continues to make gains in the industry, which brings us to Sony’s position next.

Sony:

Sony’s position with the PS3 is greatly improved over a year ago, due to price cuts and better software. In seven quarters of sales, Sony has sold 14.41m PS3s to retailers (shipped), an average of about 2.058m shipped per quarter, or about 686,200 PS3s shipped per month. The median figure is of course lower, since it is un-impacted by the holiday quarter boost. For PS3, the median shipment figure per quarter is 1.68m, about 560,000 PS3s shipped per month. Unlike Microsoft & Nintendo though, the shipment figure per quarter is a bit disingenuous as PS3 did not have a simultaneous world launch in the same quarter as Wii and Xbox 360 did.

Shipments	Sept 06'	Dec 06'	Mar 07'	Jun 07'	Sep 07'	Dec 07'	Mar 08'	Jun 08'
PS3 LTD	0	1.68	3.61	4.32	5.63	10.53	12.85	14.41
Quarter	0	1.68	1.93	0.71	1.31	4.90	2.32	1.56

In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2008, Sony shipped 9.24m PS3s worldwide. For the year ending March 31, 2009, Sony projects to ship 10m PS3s worldwide. On the surface, it would look like Sony’s game segment is improving, despite the gains by Microsoft and Nintendo. While the PS3 is certainly improving, the PS2 is forecast by Sony to decline sharply from the previous fiscal year. Sony sold 13.73m PS2s to retailers in the year ending March 31, 2008, but it projects to sell only 9m PS2s to retailers in the year ending March 31, 2009. With 1.51m PS2s sold to retailers in the three months ending June 30, 2008, the projection of 9m looks about perfect. The PS3 projection also looks realistic at 10m with no price cuts likely in the near future because of how expensive it remains to make a PS3.

If that’s the case, Sony will sell 19m PS3 & PS2 consoles to retailers this year. Nintendo expects to sell 25m Wiis to retailers in the same period, which means for the first time since the 12 months ending March 1997 – a period of over a decade – Sony will not be the top console company in the world. The year ending March 1997 was the previous transition (according to shipments posted on Nintendo's and Sony's IR sites) since it saw Nintendo ship 5.8m N64s, 3.3m SNES consoles, and 0.1m NES consoles for a total of 9.2m consoles shipped while Sony’s production shipments of PS1 were 9.2m in the same time frame. Sony may beat its PS3 projections slightly in the fiscal year, but not to the tune of 6 million, so it looks pretty safe to say that despite the improving position of PS3, Sony is no longer the top console company. Trends were certainly heading that way in the 12 months ending March 31, 2008 with the rise of the Wii but Sony had shipped 22.97m consoles (PS2 & PS3) to Nintendo’s 18.77m consoles (GC & Wii) in the period.

With Sony focused on profitability in its gaming sector, the simplest catalyst to make PS3 beat its projection, a price cut, is unlikely to happen through March 2009. After that though, Sony will likely need to drop the price of PS3, since the Xbox 360 will probably see a price cut (or two) by Spring 2009. PS3 is cheaper than last year so it will have a bigger holiday quarter, but a lot will depend on what sku percentages Sony sticks with for PS3 in this quarter. With the range of possibilities built in and a look back at previous quarters for reference, PS3 shipments should roughly follow the pattern in the image below.

With PS3 unlikely to peak at PS2 numbers (shipment projections for PS3 this FY are up only .76m this FY despite the fact that PS3 costs $100 less than before), and PS2 in steady decline, the PSP has taken over the mantle as Sony’s top selling platform. While software sales for PSP were the lowest of Sony’s three platforms in the quarter ending June 2008, PSP software still contributed 11.9m units out of 53.9m units of Sony software shipped in the quarter, a rate which will increase as PS2 software starts to really dry up (for a platform that sold over 1.2b units of software 100m in a year counts as drying up). With the highest hardware sales of the three Sony platforms PSP software sales could reach a point where it regularly tops PS3 software sales on a regular basis as well, despite the lower attach rates portables have and the piracy issues that run rampant on PSP. The quarter ending June 30 was something of an exception since GTAIV and Metal Gear Solid 4 alone likely saw shipments of 7m+ units or so on PS3, and a number of lesser, but still big releases came out throughout the quarter. For some context on how outsized the quarter was, consider that PS3 software shipments in the quarter ending December 2007 were only 3m units higher than PS3 software shipments in the June 2008 quarter.

Still, with PSP sell through set to top 40m in sell through this year, and much better software sales than PS2 & PS3 in Japan, Sony is probably quite happy it entered the portable market as most marquee releases will now see sales split between Xbox 360 and PS3. At some point then, for at least a few quarters, PSP will be Sony’s top platform for software. Sony should have no trouble seeing ~250m in software shipments on its platforms this year (100m PS2, 75m PSP, 75m PS3 seems likely given current trends) which is a substantial sum, but less than what Sony was shipping in years closer to the PS2 peak. As recently as the 12 months ending March 2007, Sony shipped over 261m units of software for PS2, PSP and PS3 for instance.

In the April 1997 to March 2008 period as top console maker, PS1 and PS2 and PS3 software shipments reached about 2.4 billion units, though prior to April 2007, ‘shipments’ at Sony were counted as production shipments rather units bought by stores. Just like with hardware shipments though, Nintendo is now the top company for software shipments, with 350m+ forecast for Wii & DS. With those comparisons in mind we move on to Nintendo.

Nintendo:

Nintendo’s current fiscal year, which ends March 2009, is probably going to be its best year for quite some time. Wii shipment rates continue to rise for both hardware and software. DS hardware is in something of a plateau on western sales that are still growing, especially in Europe, offsetting declining Japanese sales. DS Software sales are likely to peak this fiscal year. Wii may not be in its peak phase yet, but the decline in DS after this year will largely offset any increase in Wii shipments per year from now on.

Wii has been available worldwide in seven quarters. Nintendo has shipped 29.62m Wiis in that time, for average quarterly shipments of 4.23m, or 1.41m per month. The median quarterly shipment rate for Wii is 3.9m, or about 1.3m per month. Since Wii is in a seemingly unending state of high demand, Nintendo has increased production pretty regularly. This can be seen by comparing sequential four quarter shipment totals from launch. Q1 to Q4 saw over 13m Wiis shipped. Q2 to Q5 saw almost 17m Wiis shipped. Q3 to Q6 saw 18.61m Wiis shipped, which was the total in Nintendo’s last fiscal year. Q4 to Q7 saw 20.35m Wiis shipped (July 1 2007 to June 30 2008).

Shipments	Sept 06'	Dec 06'	Mar 07'	Jun 07'	Sep 07'	Dec 07'	Mar 08'	Jun 08'
Wii LTD	0	3.19	5.84	9.27	13.17	20.13	24.45	29.62
Quarter	0	3.19	2.65	3.43	3.9	6.96	4.32	5.17

If the pattern were to continue, Q5 to Q8 would see 23m Wiis shipped, Q6 to Q9 would see 25m Wiis shipped, and Q7 to Q10, which is April 2008 to March 2009, would see 27m Wiis shipped. Sure enough, Nintendo has said its capacity for Wii production was 1.8m/month from April to June 2008, but would be raised to 2.4m/month from July 2008. If the 2.4m/month remained in place through March 2009, Nintendo would ship 1.8m * 3 + 2.4m * 9 Wiis, or exactly 27m Wiis. With no sign of Wii slowing down, Wii hardware shipments should look like so over the next four quarters:

The yellow line is simply Nintendo’s forecast of 49.45m through March 2009, which assumes 25m Wiis in the FY. ‘Wii Cap’ is the 27m scenario, outlined above. The blue line is if Nintendo raises capacity above 2.4m/per month sometime in the next year. Regardless of the trajectory, Wii will be Nintendo’s second best selling console of all time within the year, as N64 shipment totals and SNES shipment totals are less than 9 months away at the rate Wii sells.

Alongside Nintendo’s stellar hardware sales, DS and Wii have been moving enormous amounts of software. In the three months ending June 2008, the platforms combined for 77m units of software shipped. Wii shipments in the Americas stand at roughly ½ of DS shipments in the Americas right now, but in this quarter Wii software easily topped DS software. With 12m fewer pieces of hardware in the Americas, Wii software out shipped DS software by 5m in the quarter. That achievement is especially stunning since even if Wii Sports is thrown out as a pack in, Wii software still beat DS software in the Americas by 2.5m units. In the Others region the case is perhaps even more impressive. DS has out shipped Wii by 19m units in the region through June 08', but Wii software was still dead even with DS software in Others this quarter, and Smash Brothers had not even released until late June. Total Wii software shipments, which Nintendo says do not include Wiiware & Virtual Console, reached 187m this quarter, on 29.62m Wiis. DS software shipments stand at 406m lifetime, on 77.54m DS units. As a point of comparison, GBA hardware shipments stand at 81.24m, but the portable right now has made it to only 376.94m units of software shipped. DS software is still selling quite strongly and will top 500m by the end of 2008, en route to topping 550m by the end of Nintendo’s fiscal year.

Through March 2008, Nintendo had shipped 369.61m units of DS software. Nintendo projects to sell 187.7m units of DS software to retailers from April 2008 to March 2009, which would bring total DS software to 557.31m. If anything, the forecast may be conservative, as DS shipped 36.59m units of software this quarter alone and it still has a few major releases and recently released games that will join the host of others with huge legs. It’s by no means guaranteed to happen though with the inroads pirates have been making in copying DS software. But if that factor is contained, there is no reason Nintendo can’t sell 200m units of DS software in the current fiscal year. Once Nintendo tops 501m units of DS software, DS will surpass both Gameboy and NES software shipments, becoming Nintendo's most successful platform of all time. Pretty good for a product once referred to as 'a third pillar' and 'an experiment'.

Through March 2008, Nintendo had shipped 148.44m units of Wii software. For the year ending March 2009, Nintendo expects to ship 177.7m units of Wii software – and this projection does not include bundled software, though the total through March 2008 does according to Nintendo. If Nintendo meets its goal, Wii will reach 326.14m units of software shipped on March 31, 2009. In the April to June quarter, Nintendo sold 40.41m units of Wii software to retailers on the strength of hits like Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit. July to September should be a bit quiet by comparison, but with the growing user base the major previous hits should develop long legs. The holiday season will be absolutely huge for Wii software worldwide, so it looks again like Nintendo’s projection is a bit conservative for Wii software. Wii software could also top 200m in the fiscal year, given that the Wii software to hardware rate has been hovering around 6-7 games/console without Wii Sports, and since ~50m Wiis will be out there by March 2009, along with an even greater selection of games it wouldn’t be a stretch to see Wii hit 350m units of software shipped.

With 400m units of software shipping in the year possible, and up to 55m units of hardware shipping alongside it, this is going to a hell of a year for Nintendo and the industry as a whole. Below is some context for it all.

Conclusions

The industry is doing very well. How well? In a previous article, VGC noted that Wii, PS3 and 360 sales (not shipments) could reach 45m to 55m worldwide in 2008. That still looks true. But when you throw in DS, PSP, and PS2, the industry is even healthier. All told, at least 90m units of videogame hardware are going to be sold in 2008. The six machines have already sold about 45m units in 2008. Growth is happening all over the industry. There has never been for instance a fiscal year where up to 700m units of video game software sold on videogame hardware, but with 350m-400m units of software to be sold on DS and Wii, 225m-275m units of software to be sold on PSP, PS2, and PS3, and whatever amount sells on Xbox 360 (Microsoft doesn’t provide X360 sw figures, but its likely at least 50m) the industry is getting huge.

Still, most of the growth can be traced to what Nintendo has done, and the success of Wii and DS. There are a number of ways to prove this point in side by side comparisons. Here is one, where I've assembled lifetime console shipments since the Wii launch:

Console	Dec 06'	Mar 07'	Jun 07'	Sep 07'	Dec 07'	Mar 08'	Jun 08'
Nintendo Wii	3.19	5.84	9.27	13.17	20.13	24.45	29.62
Xbox 360	10.4	10.9	11.6	13.4	17.7	19	20.3
PS3	1.66	3.57	4.28	5.59	10.49	12.81	14.41

Visually things look even better for Wii –

Another is aligning shipments by quarters from launch (italicized numbers are Sony and Nintendo projected shipment totals for March 31, 2009):

	Q0	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9	Q10	Q11
Wii	0	3.19	5.84	9.27	13.17	20.13	24.45	29.62			49.45
X360	0	1.5	3.2	5	6	10.4	10.9	11.6	13.4	17.7	19	20.3
PS3	0	1.68	3.61	4.32	5.63	10.53	12.85	14.41			22.85

Again, visuals make Wii look even better here –

For a better idea of how well Wii might sell –

Wii is tracking faster than DS despite costing more; PS3 is tracking faster than Xbox 360 despite costing more. That leaves PS3 and Wii with a big weapon to stay ahead of the pace of Xbox 360 and DS respectively. Whether Wii and PS3 can track ahead perpetually is the question, especially for the Wii vs. DS case as DS is going to have at least three years where it ships over 20m.

We can also estimate final market share by dividing a console's shipped ltd by the sum of the three shipment totals at common times to see how things are progressing –

Since Xbox 360 launched first, it had 100% of this generation until its competitors launched. However, since they have launched Xbox 360 and PS3 have seen their combined share shrink tremendously vs. total Wii shipments.The question is where the three percentages will flat line. It does look like Wii is poised to take 50-55% shipment market share though.If nothing else, it looks like Nintendo is poised to drive the industry for the next few years, while Sony makes gains in the portable segment and Microsoft makes gain in the console segment.

Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com

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Sqrl (on 01 August 2008)

@Redcoat,

I don't know if you can make the attribution that simple. Why does the increase in 2nd place sales mean growth for the 2nd place console? After all nobody is loyal to a console's position in the race (that I know of).

I think the reason I would peg the growth on Nintendo is because they have the obvious addition of a new market sector. Ask your self this question: "If the market had not grown at all and each console was fighting for customers from the previous generation only, whose numbers would suffer the most?" I think in that Scenario its quite clearly the Wii who would have tremendous issues.

Now certainly MS and Sony have had their own growth but I think the idea is to highlight the main source of growth and I honestly think that is Nintendo by every indication.

Renar (on 01 August 2008)

Good write up. Does look like (so far, at least) all consoles will do fairly well in sales. Now for the more difficult write up. We know that we are running out of zeros to count up Nintendo's profits, especially what would be the lifetime profits on the Wii and DS. But what about the X360 and even moreso the PS3's lifetime profits, hmmm?

TheSource (on 01 August 2008)

Hmm looks like there is an Xbox 360 price cut coming. September though. Not October. Pretty close though...

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/08/01/mole-attack-360-price-cuts-on-all-hardware-in-september

Daddo Splat (on 01 August 2008)

ya looking at ps2 selling 9 million next year how will wii ever catch that will Wii's life cycle be as long a Ps2???? where's the PS2 at now 130 million???

The videogame industry has always been copy what works! So expect the wii to get some type of competition with peripherals and new hardware which could end its massive push early.

leaving it short of PS2 #'s despite that if it does get there congrats to nintendo for keeping it simple stupid. becasue they definetly are kiss-ing the competition good bye.

simplicity and ease of use theres a concept by the way my wife lost 8lbs on wii fit so I love it.

TheSource (on 01 August 2008)

Redcoat: Yeah thats a valid point. But DS & Wii are out pacing PS1 & PS2. PS3 & 360 combined will probably end up at 80m to 120m shipped but even without Wii existing or selling well I don't think they'd reach much more than that, which means the market would have shrunk. DS is going to hit 100m shipped in under five years from its launch (the quarter ending June 30, 2009 is the most likely time for the 100m shipped threshold - DS launched in the quarter ending Dec 31 2004), and Wii is currently out pacing DS. Sony famously claimed that PS2 took 5 years and 9 months to reach 100m shipped (http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/051130e.pdf), but DS is going to do it in a year less time, and Wii could theoretically do it in ~4 years from launch if it keeps out pacing DS.

Redcoat222 (on 31 July 2008)

A comprehensive article.

I have a problem though with the idea that Nintendo is driving industry growth. Shouldn't growth be measured according to the past rather than just saying that the Wii is well ahead so it's driving growth?

Sensible estimates put the PS3 on course to sell 2.5-3x more than the console which came 2nd last gen, and the 360 to sell 2-2.5x the console which came 3rd last gen. Yet it is still undecided that the Wii will actually equal the sales of 1st place last gen and even supposing it will it won't be by a huge amount.

My point is that the growth this gen is coming primarily from the fact that the two runners-up are doing much better than previous runners-up while 1st place is doing roughly equal or only a little better.

That seems to me to be a logical way to look at it as things stand right now, unless there's some mathematical procedure I'm missing here.

TheSource (on 31 July 2008)

Dallas - Haven't seen any 360 sw shipment totals anywhere
Egghead - No idea how the end of 2009 turns out, I only went out through June 2009

Egghead (on 31 July 2008)

So TheSource, just when do you think will the PS3 catch up with the 360, because from your projections, it seems it wont have even done so by the end of 2009.

dallas (on 31 July 2008)

Decent analysis. Hey Source, does the PS3 still look like it will catch up the the 360 w/ WW software anytime soon? Or has the latest push by MS w/ its soon to be free XBL and price cut make them look like they will hold the PS3 off?

jheco05 (on 31 July 2008)

HUMONGOUS DATA... CONGRATS THE SOURCE....

Retrasado (on 31 July 2008)

great article source

Punisher (on 31 July 2008)

"In other news, Nintendo is only one able sell their consoles, off the holiday season."

:p

TheSource (on 31 July 2008)

Well...180m PSP games shipped lifetime by the end of the year...not in a year.

hunter_alien (on 31 July 2008)

So this means that we could see over 180 million PSP games shipped untill the end of the year ? And that is being dead ? Wow, impressive :D

TWRoO (on 31 July 2008)

@Andir... Wii used the forcast of Nintendo as the low values because that is the what Nintendo expects it will be shipping. with the "cap" being what they could ship with the current 2.4 million per month.

PS3 used "low" because that is Sony's current forcast but The Source obviously believes it will surpass that, hence his expected is higher than Sony's current forcast.

Microsoft doesn't have a forcast so The Source has based it on sales.

jkimball (on 31 July 2008)

@andir that is vgchartz standard. Ps3 is never expected to a) grow in sales or b) outsell anything. If it does, it si treated as a minor miracle.

That notion still holds, despite PS3 handily outselling XBOX, for over a year now.

Shrug. You get used to it :)

Andir (on 31 July 2008)

So why use Best/Improved/No Growth for the 360, Best/Cap/Forecast Growth for the Wii, but you used Best/Expected/Low Growth for the PS3? Of the three, you gave the average lowest growth expectancy for the PS3 and the highest average expected growth charts for the other two.

Simulacrum (on 31 July 2008)

Dont really get it.

HanzoTheRazor (on 31 July 2008)

Great read mate! It is trully the most interesting time to be a gamer. :p

@SOLIDSNAKE08

Yeh, u are right. SONY will sell more than 10mil. Good ploy to boost confidence in share holders though, right?

koffieboon (on 31 July 2008)

@TheSource: You mention that PS3 is cheaper than last year so it will have a bigger holiday quarter, but the 40GB PS3 was released before the holidays. So during the holidays the 400 dollar/euro PS3 was already available.

heruamon (on 31 July 2008)

One word...NICE...good stuff there, and it's going to be iteresting to see how it tracks...I think this holiday season will be bigger than the last, even with the economic downturn...nothing massive, but just enough to top out last year's numbers, which were incredible. Every console has such massive games on tap that the season while HDTVs and other bigger ticket items might suffer, I think console will thrive.

Imthelegend (on 31 July 2008)

Does that mean the attach ratio of the wii is at 6.31. Thats great news and a smack in the face for anyone who says Wii owners do not buy games.

SOLIDSNAKE08 (on 31 July 2008)

sony are just saying they are going to sell 10 million ps3's, because they know they are gonna sell way more! so then they can say they passed their expectations!

SaviorX (on 31 July 2008)

Nice work Source. It was informative to read, and provided a reasonable outlook for the future, instead of random numbers being thrown out (27m PS3s in 2011).

misterd (on 31 July 2008)

Gearbox - what sign is there that MS is abandoning core gamers while chasing after casuals? The nice thing about being a billion dollar company is that you can hire people to do more than two things at once.

chenguo4 (on 31 July 2008)

Wow this was amazingly interesting.

Griffin (on 31 July 2008)

Thanks for another great article, the industry expansion is just massive, but i wonder if Next gen Nintendo can match what they have done this gen.

TheTruthHurts! (on 31 July 2008)

Great read, and great work. Thanks goes out to the staff for providing such awesome feedback and numbers, keep it up.

quetzal_NZ (on 31 July 2008)

Excellent review of the current data and trends.

Gearbox (on 30 July 2008)

This must suck for sony. They only made 4 billion last year while microsoft made 17 billion ( this encludes everythign they are in) And now they are competeing for the same market. Good thing xbox is screwing up with going to casual gamers. Like comon why pick a 360 for banjokazooie when you can get mario and link etc etc on a "revolutionary" controller....

Godot (on 30 July 2008)

Impressive read! Great as always!

MontanaHatchet (on 30 July 2008)

Ahh, okay then. That pretty much clears it up. Thanks!

TWRoO (on 30 July 2008)

^Indeed... Presumably they can keep track of both, so allthough the fiscal reports had sales to retail in 1996-2000, they knew production shipments too and that's what's jn the site (after all they did finish PS1s life using "Production shipments")

TheSource (on 30 July 2008)

The 19m is shipments of Playstations: 10m PS3s projected + 9m PS2s projected for the year ending March 31 2009

MontanaHatchet (on 30 July 2008)

"Sony will sell 19m consoles to retailers this year"

Unless you meant this year instead of lifetime.

TheSource (on 30 July 2008)

Also Twroo I had thought so too but Sony's website refers to PS1 shipments as production shipments see - http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps_e.html

TheSource (on 30 July 2008)

Montana 19m PS3s by the end of the year? Even my worst case for PS3 shipments isn't that low

TheSource (on 30 July 2008)

I just did a massive edit so everything should be visible now.

EaglesEye379 (on 30 July 2008)

Great work.

My money on Improved growth scenario for both 360/PS3 and Wii Cap scenario for Wii.

Not so bullish on PSP prospects as you though.

trestres (on 30 July 2008)

Great article, as always.

Gives an idea on how well will the Wii sell. I think 45 million by years end is very reasonable. They will surpass their forecasts for FY08. By March 09 ore than 50 million Wii will be in gamers hands.

shams (on 30 July 2008)

Nice work :)

That first "MS shipment table" is past the end of the form column for me, and I can't see the last 2 numbers.

Its pretty amazing that Ninty shipped more Wii units last qrt, than either MS or Sony did for their "best (Xmas) qrt" to date.

Most interesting thing now, IMO will be the timing of the price cut on the 360 skus for this Xmas. And also to see what Sony has planned (cheap PS2, more PSP/PS3 bundles).

TWRoO (on 30 July 2008)

Little note for you.
Sony actually used shipments to retail in it's FY ending March 2000 and before that.

Their 7 year stint of using production shipments was placed perfectly over PS2s life (starting 1 month after PS2 Japan release, and reverting back 4 months after PS3 release)

MontanaHatchet (on 30 July 2008)

19 million PS3s shipped by the end of the year? That seems terribly low. Sony is either getting lazy with producing more consoles or they have troubling gauging eventual demand.

TheSource (on 30 July 2008)

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