IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

PS3 to Outsell Xbox 360 This Year, says Activision

Posted February 11, 2010 by James Brightman

On a conference call following its impressive year-end fiscal results, Activision Blizzard provided its own estimates for console hardware sales across North America and Europe for 2010. Activision Publishing president Mike Griffith said that Sony's PS3 will edge out Microsoft's Xbox 360, 9 million units sold compared to 8 million for 360.  Nintendo's Wii is expected to hold onto the top spot, however, selling 12 million units. On the portable front, Activision expects the DS and PSP platforms combined to grow by more than 18 million units. 

"Console sales remain strong in 2009 and as of December 31st, the installed base of hardware in U.S. and Europe for current generation systems and handhelds was 218 million units, an increase of 37 per cent year-over-year," said Griffith. “Looking to 2010, we expect the installed base of current generation systems to grow to 265 million, making this cycle the largest ever."

As for software, although combined sales in the U.S. and Europe were down 10% in 2009 in large part because of steep PS2 declines, Activision expects 2010 software sales to bounce back. “For 2010, we expect combined U.S. and European retail software market for the current generation console systems, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, will be up low-to-mid-single digits year-over-year. Our software outlook is based on the assumption that retailers will hold AAA launch pricing throughout the year. We also expect that the PS2 segment will again decline significantly and that software for the DS and PSP handhelds will also be down this year,” Griffith noted.

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.