Analysts: Wii To Outsell PS3 By 4:1 In June

Ahead of the July 23rd release of June sales figures from NPD, Wedbush Morgan and fantasy video game prediction market simExchange have released their predictions, calling for at least a 4 to 1 outselling of the Wii compared with the PS3. Wedbush's Michael Pachter has said he expects sales in June to rise 8 percent to $480 million from 2006's $444 million. The estimate calls for $325 million in sales of new platforms (PS3, Wii, 360, PSP and DS) and current generation software sales of 155 million. Looking specifically at the PS2, Pachter says he expects software sales of $125 million, down just 19% over last year, with a continuing "strong slate of mass-market titles" released over the past two months. Pachter has made the following predictions on a publisher by publisher basis: - Activision -- $80 million, +129% from 2006. - Atari -- $3 million, -53% from 2006. - Electronic Arts -- $65 million, -11% from 2006. - Majesco -- $4 million, -37% from 2006. - Midway -- $7 million, -15% from 2006. - Take-Two -- $40 million, +6% from 2006. - THQ -- $35 million, -19% from 2006. - Ubisoft -- $24 million, -1% from 2006. On a platform basis, Pachter offered the following predictions, including a more than 4 to 1 outpacing of the Wii compared with the PlayStation 3, despite continuing hardware shortages: - Wii - 435,000 - PS3 - 100,000 - Xbox 360 - 200,000 - PS2 - 235,000 - PSP - 250,000 - DS - 550,000 - GBA - 90,000 Fantasy video game prediction market simExchange, which aggregates predictions from multiple users of its service, has similarly offered its hardware predictions at the following rates: - Nintendo DS - 510,000 - Wii - 433,000 - PSP - 273,000 - Xbox 360 - 191,000 - Playstation 3 - 101,000 For the first time, simExchange is also offering a forecast of ten top selling titles for the month of June, including the following: - Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360) 192K copies - Mario Party 8 (Wii) 329K copies - The Darkness (PS3) 67K copies - The Darkness (Xbox 360) 140K copies - Pokemon Battle Revolution (Wii) 171K copies - Big Brain Academy (Wii) 107K copies - Transformers: The Game (PS2) 102K copies - Transformers: The Game (Xbox 360) 90K copies - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (PS2) 142K copies - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Xbox 360) 59K copies The games listed by simExchange were chosen specifically for forecasting by the group, and are not necessarily meant to represent the top ten sellers of the month. NPD will release its official sales figures on Monday, July 23rd, with a full update from Gamasutra at that time.