Topic: No Revolution loving from the analysts.

[BlkPaladin]

From the same analysts that said the DS would not do well against the PSP. They have come out with their predictions for the next generation. It seems they only think the Revolution will sell 5 million units through 2008. They also reiterate that the PSP will get a boost when it rereleases the PSP with a Hard Drive, eventually beating the DS.

Here are the numbers they give through 2008.

1. Xbox 360 - 19.6 million units
2. PS3 - 15.5 million units
3. Revolution 5 million units.

(This is from page 42 of the December 2005 Game Informer. The analysts are from Piper Jeffray.)

[Dirk Temporo]

Do they know what the chances of a system only selling five million units in TWO F*CKING YEARS is?

[KnowsNothing]

Has a video game analyst ever been right?  Even remotely?  We need Mario in here, he's much better at this.  

[BlkPaladin]

Yeah they keep trying to apply business logic to an industry that doesn't act normally.

[SaimDusan.I]

That could not have not been made by fanboys.

[ShyGuy]

Never mind, didn't read all the  post, durh.

[stevey]

Reggie need to kick their butts. My number for sales are:
1 revolution - 23.7~35 million
2 360 - 2.5~10.8 million
3 ps3 - 1.91~4.98 million

[odifiend]

That is interesting that the analysts are from Piper Jeffray since their previous 'research' is what Nintendo has largely cited as the logic behind the Revolution.  Revolution is kind of a wild card, but 24 months for 5 million consoles is kind of an insult - especially when you are looking at the expensive alternatives.  Can Microsoft even produce that many consoles by then?
I don't understand how a 200 dollar harddrive will boost PSP sales and give it the magical 3-5 million more units it needs to even catch the DS.

[Mario]

Ahaha, are these worldwide numbers? If so, Revolution could sell 5 million units in Japan alone in one year, if they take to it like they did with the DS, which I think they will. 360 outselling PS3? Unless the cost of PS3 is going to be insanely high, or they make some other kind of stupid error, that isn't going to happen.

Of course, it's still too early to make accurate assumptions, which I guess is why they got these out now, so they can say "heh, well things changed! doh! UALUEALUEALUEALUEALAUELALAUA" when they're proven wrong.

Xbox 360 didn't even do 1 million worldwide in its first launch holiday season, with Microsofts lack of direction and complete lack of upcoming compelling content I don't see many people going out of there way to pick up a 360, let alone enough to make it market leader.

As for Playstation 3 and Nintendo Revolution, well we don't even have release dates for those systems yet. They're only discounting them just because they can, it's easy to say something that doesn't exist yet will suck and have people believe you.

I'm not going to guess numbers, but i'll say from what we know now, if everyone pre-ordered a next gen console right now, PS3 would get the most, then Revolution a fair bit behind, but not far enough for a catch up to be impossible, then Xbox 360 a bit behind that. Another thing is that Xbox 360 and PS3 are predictable, most likely if someone doesn't plan on buying a 360 now they wont change their mind in the future, at least until they hit family friendly price points, which DOESN'T look like it's going to happen anytime soon. Revolution is still a question mark, and depending on the games could be a threat to PS3, and considering the target audience is EVERYONE, it has the most potential. After E3, I can make an accurate prediction.

PSP ever catching up to DS is just laughable.

[Magik]

These analysts are basing their predictions on what Nintendo did with the GC, so it's not too surprising the REV is thought of being last.

[Mario]

Yeah, it's like they just saw how Nintendo's marketshare decreased with N64 and then again with GC, and predict it will happen again, extremely shallow and short sighted, I thought this was the kind of thing analysts were paid NOT to do.

[BiLdItUp1]

Wall street analysts, in any field, are usually full of it and are trying to cover their own asses or pander to what the audience wants to hear (and, of course, money hats. Anyone seens Syriana?). Ditto for most game reviewers, film critics, etc. etc.

Honestly, I think that Nintendo has hit rockbottom in terms of console market share, and at this point, if they play they're marketing and game cards correctly (admittedly a big if), market share has nowhere to go but up. Certainly not 5 million in two years.

[BlkPaladin]

Yes just like Nintendo is in the market for money. At least since games are their only source of income it makes them work harder to make their games good.

[nickmitch]

What I wanna know is: why do they think the 360 is going to sell the most?
It's current popularity is cancelled by it's scarcity. Do they even realize that?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

It's not scarce in JAY-PAN.  =D

[Ceric]

Ok just putting this out there but, can we agree that PSP is just a portable Video player with an exclusive format that just happens to be able to play games at a decent level?  If we use that logic then the harddrive, if large enough, will make it able to rival the ipod.  Which means in theory that yes the harddrive could produce that level of business, unless you can get the superior PDA with a harddrive.  Sony dropped the ball with the PSP on something which is funny because they use to sell a top of line PDA.  Go figure.  Plus it can surf the web.  Well I've never seen anything else portable that can do that, oh wait I have.

These "predictions" have no real bearing it seems where the Revolution is concerned.  It sounds to me they are using the numbers from the Virtual Boy to make the "prediction" instead of the DS.  *shrug*  They'll change there tune when it sells 5 million within the first year, if not half a year, without any shortages.

[Ian Sane]

"Do they know what the chances of a system only selling five million units in TWO F*CKING YEARS is?"

Agreed.  No console that sold that poorly would last two years.

Can't say that the X360 is going to beat the PS3 but regarding the low Rev numbers they're fairly logical.

Nintendo is currently in last place.  Their market share shrinks every generation.  The third party support on the Cube is pretty much dead and Nintendo is currently not relevent to today's gaming market.  Analysts follow trends and if you go by current trends Nintendo as a console maker is a sinking ship.

And Nintendo doesn't have anything to show to prove otherwise.  All they have is a weird controller and a "plan" about non-gamers that goes against how the current gaming market works.  Nintendo's plan is either total genius or total insanity.  They will either greatly succeed or fail miserably.  Since Nintendo is keeping so much a secret "failure" is a safer estimate.  There's nothing other than Nintendo's say-so that suggests improvement.  Logically it would make more sense to assume that things will stay the same (ie: Nintendo's market shrinking) if there is nothing solid to suggest otherwise.

Assuming the PSP would do better than the DS was logical.  The PSP had more games at launch then the DS had available PERIOD at the same time.  The PSP launch games were better than the DS games available at the time.  The PSP had better marketing and better hardware.  All the DS had was a touchscreen feature that had not been established as anything beyond a g!mmick.  Nintendo was even trying to disassociate the DS from the Gameboy, which was a strong brand name.  What actually happened is something that would have been difficult to predict.  The DS managed to sell well anyway despite having a HORRIBLE launch lineup and the PSP became a glorified movie player.  I still think Nintendo fluked their way out of that one and that the portable market was Sony's for the taking and they screwed themselves over with their stupid UMD movie crap.

Well I guess you can say that analysts aren't reliable which is true.  But the Rev significantly underperforming is not an unrealistic estimate.  Nintendo's a two time "loser" with ideas about the future that conflict with everyone else.  Unless you're a diehard fan with a lot of faith in them it just wouldn't make sense to assume that THIS time their cooky idea that goes against all market trends is going to work.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

Ian, as far as your doubts about the non-gamer strategy...the DS was trailing behind the PSP, just as analysts predicted, until the release of Nintendogs...Also, the four latest games to reach the million mark for DS all happen to be non-games, Nintendogs included (I consider Animal Crossing a non-game).

[archioverload]

The thing that sucks about these kind of Nostradamus-like predictions is that perception creates reality. We don't necessarily believe these predictions, but publishers do, and retail chains do. The biggest hurdle the Revolution will have, I think, is finding prominent retail shelf space. If people (except die-hards) can't get their hands on the controller to try it out then it's going to  be a self-fulfilling prophecy with these numbers (okay, maybe not 5 million bad, but certainly not more than the GameCube--which Nintendo itself has said is the benchmark...if the Revolution doesn't sell more than the Cube then it's a failure).  

[BiLdItUp1]

Quote
Originally posted by: kirby_killer_dedede
Ian, as far as your doubts about the non-gamer strategy...the DS was trailing behind the PSP, just as analysts predicted, until the release of Nintendogs...Also, the four latest games to reach the million mark for DS all happen to be non-games, Nintendogs included (I consider Animal Crossing a non-game).

I think Ian's point was that the DS is beating the PSP because Sony's screwed themselves with the whole UMD-movie thing, and that's why people are going to the DS. A point which I don't completely believe, though I'm sure it contributed in some way to the DS's growth recently.

[Ian Sane]

"I think Ian's point was that the DS is beating the PSP because Sony's screwed themselves with the whole UMD-movie thing, and that's why people are going to the DS."

Well now the DS actually has better games and deserves to sell better.  But when the PSP launched I logically think it should have creamed the DS.  The UMD movie issue is what prevented that though now the current scenario is perfectly logical.  The DS has better games so it's winning.

[ShyGuy]

And look where your Vulcan logic got you now!

I think there are more factors to a game system's success than a favorable software catalog. That's a bit simplistic.

[JonLeung]

I see many more TV ads for the DS (the few times I actually do watch TV) but it seems like the PSP is still more talked about.

I think people are afraid of mentioning Nintendo because they think it's passé or will be labelled a fanboy if they do.  Even when it's clear that the DS sells better and it's very likely due to much more interesting games, people don't seem to have to mention it as often as the PSP.  Maybe because non-gamers identify with the fact that it can do more.  And I think many people still think there's only one Nintendo handheld...the GBA (tough still mentioned as just the Game Boy in nearly all cases).  Maybe the fact that there are two Nintendo handhelds, and one of those already with various redesigns (original, SP, Micro, not to mention the better lit SP, GBP, and the fact that the DS can play GBA games) non-gamers are confused and refer to them all as Game Boys, so maybe that's why I'm not hearing "DS" exactly when I could be hearing it.  

[Avinash_Tyagi]

True the PSP did have a chance to knock off the DS, but that's over, the PSP has little chance of catching up now.

Whats important to take into account Ian, is that the DS's strategy of luring the non-gamer as well as the gamer has been paying off, now I know you can't directly transfer success in the portable market to success in the console market, but it bodes well for the Revolution that the DS has had such success, and since the lines in the console market seem to be taking a similar route as they did in the portable conflict between DS and PSP (PS3 and 360 going for power and multimedia, Rev going for innovation and the non-gamer as well) there is a reason to believe the Rev may have greater success than the GCN.

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: ShyGuy
And look where your Vulcan logic got you now!

I think there are more factors to a game system's success than a favorable software catalog. That's a bit simplistic.

Indeed

The Dreamcast had a better catalog than the PS2 right up until Sega pulled the plug.