Off Topic: Pachter Predicts 24% April Rise
Ahead of NPD Group’s monthly report, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter predicts that that April US software sales were up 24 percent to $489 million, with the Wii heavily outselling the PS3 on the hardware front.April of last year brought in $395 million in videogame console software sales in the US.
Pachter said in an investor note that his forecasts are based on the assumption that PS3 sell-through was 100,000 and Wii’s was 300,000 during the four-week period ending May 5.
He expects the attach rate to be around 4.3 software units per PS3 and Wii.
The release of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl for Nintendo DS will be the primary driver for the month, with around 800,000 in unit sales for the month, Pachter predicted.
Other titles that likely drove April sales include Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 2, God of War II and the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II.
Pachter forecasted $345 million in sales from “next generation” software and “current generation” sales of $144 million.
He also said that although PS2 software sales to continue to decline, mass market-targeted movie titles like Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Ratatouille, Transformers and Harry Potter will sell the most on the PS2 platform and help keep the console afloat in the coming months.
He predicted the following complete hardware unit sales for the month:
Wii 300,000
PS3 100,000
Xbox 360 175,000
PS2 250,000
PSP 200,000
DS 450,000
GBA 100,000
NPD is set to release the data on May 17.
Kris Graft
May 14, 2007
Source:
Next-Gen