Analyst: PSP Downward Sales Trend To Continue

In his latest notes on NPD's recently released May sales figures, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich has said he expects sales of the PSP to continue downward with few promising titles in the pipeline, and predicts E3 could see a new Xbox 360 model along with a price cut. Divnich notes that all hardware unit sales were under analyst expectations for March, but particularly notable was the PSP's first year over year dip of 17 percent. "This trend will likely continue," said Divnich, "as we do not see any significant PSP titles in the short-term pipeline that could drive hardware sales in Sony's favor. Furthermore, PSP software has consistently been last in software unit sales among the next-generation consoles and handhelds." "Additionally," he continued, "the PSP was the only console not to have a title in the top 10 of unit sales, even the PS2 managed to creep into the top ten with sales from Iron Man." The PlayStation 3, however, he added, should continue it's upward trend over the Xbox 360 with the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, which he says will be a bigger driver of hardware sales than Grand Theft Auto 4. "This is likely due to the exclusivity factor as exclusive releases on Sony's platforms have historically shown to be a better hardware driver than that of multi-platform releases," Divnich says. "On average, PS3 exclusive games sell 45% more, throughout their lifetime, than multi-platform titles available on the PS3. Exclusive titles for the other two systems, the Wii and Xbox 360, only boast a small increase in lifetime sales over multi-platform titles." "Of course," he points out, "in all fairness, the first year of Xbox 360 titles were pretty much all exclusive since the other systems were not available on the market." Finally, with the Wii dominating both competing consoles, Divnich says Microsoft may not wait long to strike back with more competitive pricing. "With E3 around the corner," said Divnich, "we can expect Microsoft to make some type of announcement regarding a hardware price cut, the introductory of a new hardware SKU with new features, or both. If there is a hardware price cut, it is not known if Sony will follow suit right way, but it would be safe to assume that Sony would execute some type of plan within a 2 month window of any hardware price cut from the Xbox 360."