The official numbers for May have been released by the NPD Group, and for the third straight month, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter’s forecasts have missed the mark.
But that’s very good news for Sony in their battle with Microsoft for second place in the next-gen race.
Pachter had predicted XBox to outsell PlayStation 3 for the month of May in North America, but Sony wound up selling 208,700 units while 186,600 XBox 360 consoles were sold during the same period of time.
Nintendo won for May altogether with 671,000 units sold.
While Playstation 3 was number two this month, it was expected that GTA IV would translate into big hardware sales. It didn’t.
“The continued success of GTA IV is not translating into big hardware sales for either the PS3 or the 360 but there may yet to be a lift in June due to gift-giving for Father’s Day and graduations,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
Sure, Microsoft has slashed the price of Xbox 360 in order to try to get an edge against PS3. And yes, Nintendo’s DS still outsells Sony’s PSP.
But that doesn’t mean that Sony isn’t having an incredible fiscal year nonetheless.
Head honcho Jack Tretton recently revealed how the company is ahead of the game with PlayStation 3 and PSP.
“We are tracking at 100 percent up over last year,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “…About 30 percent ahead of where we should be. So sales could slow down and we will still hit our number.”
In fact, if the trend continues, there may be some heartbreak when the holidays roll around.
“I’d say we are able to meet somewhere between 80-90 percent demand, based on how things are trending,” said Tretton. But even if supply does get limited, he said that the shorages would not be “drastic”.
Playstation 2 is still in the game.
Don’t count the Playstation 2 out just yet. That seems to be Sony’s introductory message for this year’s E3 convention held in Los Angeles, California. Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony, wasted no time to announce that the Playstation 2 will be hosting at least a hundred new titles by the end of the year. While that may not speak well of the Playstation 3′s ability to finally emerge from behind the Xbox360 and Wii sale figures, it is a good sign that Sony itself is finally listening to their consumers. The Playstation 2, which easily won the last generation’s console war and, until the last quarter of 2008, was still outselling the Playstation 3, is still a solid investment for Sony despite the fact that both Nintendo and Xbox have had much success with their newest console offerings. “We’re committed to the PS2 for as long as users see value in it,” said Tretton, and that is the most realistic and financially sound commitment a company can make whom has been struggling against the competition.
According to wikipedia.org, the Playstation 2 is the best selling console in history, totalling over 136 millions units sold by the end of December 2008.