The Divnich Tapes: Xbox 360 Price Cut Should Take It Ahead Of PS3 In July

Author: by Jesse Divnich, Staff

[Continuing his Gamasutra-exclusive NPD analysis following the release of June's game sales figures, EEDAR's director of analytical services Jesse Divnich predicts July's results, expecting improved hardware numbers for the Xbox 360 after its price cut, as well as impressive sales from Soul Calibur IV and NCAA Football 09. Previously: Disappointing Xbox 360 hardware sales and software shortages for key Wii titles.] Our two external data sources, GamerMetrics and Stream Stats, both agree that Soul Calibur IV is July’s most anticipated title. In terms of sales, however, Electronic Arts' NCAA Football 09 will likely take the #1 spot - since Soul Calibur IV will only have had one week of sales in the July month; NCAA will have had three. The other titles on the list do not seem to have too large of a variance between each other, indicating that July should be a predictable month with little surprises. Each month, EEDAR forecasts the unit sales for over 5,000 retail SKUs. This is part of a new forecasting product that is being offered to the financial and research community. Therefore, as part of the Divnich Tapes, we will be releasing some randomly selected estimates from our forecasting database. Below are some of our forecasts for July. For hardware, we do expect the Xbox 360 to outsell the Playstation 3 in July; obviously, this can be attributed to the recent Xbox 360 price cut. In the past, analysts have typically expected sales lifts in the 20-30% range after a hardware price cut; however, we should expect a different trend, as we will likely see more sales front-loaded into July and August as consumers rush to purchase the $299 version before supplies run dry. While Microsoft and Sony continue to compete in the “who has the biggest hard-drive” contest, we expect Nintendo to continue to win the real contest - selling the most systems. Since Microsoft and Sony are adamant about not dropping their hardware prices that would reach a broader market, we expect Nintendo to continue to dominate the home and portable hardware market for the rest of 2008. (Those wishing to learn more information about the EEDAR sales forecasting preview service should visit the official page for the service.) [Jesse Divnich currently serves as the director of analytical services at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR). The following is the views and opinions of one person and not of EEDAR, The simExchange, GamerMetrics, or Gametrailers.]