Moore Believes Xbox 360 Ahead Of Projections

Microsoft has continually stated that they expected to ship 10 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide by the end of the year. Now, it looks like Microsoft will beat that estimate, according to Microsoft Vice President Peter Moore. Moore cites stronger than expected sales through the Thanksgiving holiday, probably in part due to Sony’s complete inability to meet their shipment targets. A fair amount of pent-up demand for the Playstation 3 has probably shifted to the Xbox 360, given the difficulty in finding any consoles for sale for the average person. Gears of War also probably contributed to the gains, particularly given the excellent reviews the title has received.

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Gallery: Moore Believes Xbox 360 Ahead Of Projections

IDG Analysts Predict Console Sales Through 2010

Analyst group IDG has released their latest hardware and software sales projections for the North American and Western European territories, and Next Generation has summarized some of the predictions for the North American market.

IDG believes that in the short term, the Xbox 360 will benefit from general hardware shortages for the Playstation 3 and the Wii; the 2006 sales numbers bear this out, with the Playstation 3 moving just short of 1 million units in 2006, and the Wii moving about 1.1 million. This does seem somewhat at odds with other Wii sales numbers; current Nintendo projections have 1 million consoles available at launch alone, with an additional 100,000+ units shipping to retailers each week. Pre-order numbers for retailers also have been much larger for the Wii than the Playstation 3. It looks like console supply shortages will be the largest impact on Playstation 3 sales.

Still, despite these problems, IDG predicts that the Playstation 3 will overtake the Xbox 360 in the North American market by 2010. It is unclear what “winning” the console war will mean to either Sony or Microsoft, since the lead will be effectively split in this territory. Microsoft’s inability to penetrate the Japanese market may give Sony the edge globally.

The Wii predictions seem on the small side. IDG claims that the bundled Wii Sports may reduce software attach rate, but Next Generation’s excerpts otherwise give little reason behind the software sales projections. They could be basing their numbers on a growth path over the Wii, but the unknown factor will be how well Nintendo does with their “Blue Ocean” strategy to grow the video game market.

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Gallery: IDG Analysts Predict Console Sales Through 2010