PS3 to Dominate as September Game Sales Expected to See Double Digit Growth

Next week NPD will release its video game sales data for the month of September, and unlike the last five months of decline we should finally see some nice industry growth. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities and Jesse Divnich of EEDAR both issued their NPD previews, with Divnich expecting software sales of $715 million (16% increase) and Pachter aniticpating sales of $750 million (21% growth).

Both analysts think the DS will lead hardware sales but in terms of the console battle, the PS3 is expected to top both Wii and Xbox 360. Divnich sees PS3 selling 400,000 units compared to 375,000 for Wii and 370,000 for Xbox 360, while Pachter sees PS3 selling 410,000 versus 390,000 for Wii and 350,000 for Xbox 360. If the predictions prove true, it would be the first time PS3 has been on top since launching back in November 2006.

"We believe that the recent round of price cuts may benefit the PS3 the most in coming months, given that unit sales last year were only 1.5 million for the September – December 2008 period. The Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 for the past 13 months, likely due to a higher perceived value proposition (the Xbox 360 “core” model was priced $100 lower than the PS3). We think that the PS3 will outsell the Xbox 360 in September, and may continue to do so for the rest of the year," commented Pachter.

He added, "Microsoft has the ability to lower price yet again, but we anticipate the introduction of a more feature-packed Xbox 360 in early 2010 (likely with a 250Gb hard drive) at the same $299 price point; we think that Microsoft will cut price only if it begins to lose significant market share to Sony. The PSP Go launched on October 1 to little fanfare; should sales of the PSP begin to cut into Nintendo’s DS sales, we expect a price cut for the core DS Lite model (to $99) later this year or early next year."

The top selling software for September should include The Beatles: Rock Band, Need for Speed: Shift, Halo 3: ODST, Guitar Hero 5 and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. Divnich forecasts sales of 1.8 million units for ODST, which he thinks is the top selling title for the month.