Pachter: Wii Fit, GTA To Dominate May NPD

Ahead of U.S. sales data group NPD's May report, expected June 12th, Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter has predicted Wii sales to once again dominate due to 'steady supply,' with Wii Fit and Grand Theft Auto 4 to top software sales. Pachter predicts combined hardware and software sales for May to reach $530 million, up 39 percent from the year prior. Along with Wii Fit and GTA, Pachter says frequent chart toppers Wii Play, Guitar Hero III and Rock Band should continue to dominate. Turning to hardware, Pachter has released his predictions, compared against fantasy market SimExchange and predictions from stat-tracking website VGChartz, which in all cases shows the Wii continuing its hold at the top: Wedbush: Wii - 750,000 DS - 550,000 Xbox 360 - 250,000 PS3 - 225,000 PSP - 200,000 PS2 - 125,000 SimExchange: Wii - 744,000 DS - 510,000 PS3 - 228,000 Xbox 360 - 216,000 PSP - 211,000 VGChartz: Wii - 645,327 DS - 454,086 PSP - 193,188 Xbox 360 - 191,992 PS3 - 177,989 PS2 - 105,894 Pachter notes that U.S. supply of the Wii has been steadily increasing from an average of 600,000 units per month between April 2007 and March 2008, with some 714,000 units sold through in April, and an estimated 750,000 to sell in May. He concludes that "we believe that U.S. supply last year should have been somewhere between 720,000 - 900,000 units per month (40 - 50% of total units produced), and expect supply to grow to over 1 million per month in August and beyond," with shipments re-balancing from a push to supply Europe with a higher number.