Sony and Nintendo will tie in hardware race, says former SCEE boss

[Spindel]

Sony and Nintendo will tie in hardware race, says former SCEE boss // News // GamesIndustry.biz

Sony and Nintendo will tie in hardware race, says former SCEE boss

Speaking at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival this morning, former SCEE president Chris Deering predicted Sony and Nintendo will tie in the hardware sales stakes by 2011.
The EIF chairman presented figures he arrived at by triangulating Screen Digest and IDG data. He also took into account factors such as the growth of hi-def and the grey gamer market, the emergence of new game engines and increasing ubiquity of wi-fi access. He said the active installed base for hardware is set to rise from 316 million to 500 million over the next three years, with "two big mega-powers" leading the charge.
According to Deering sales of the DS and any future iterations of the hardware will reach 150 million by 2011, while the figure for Wii will be 80 million. He predicted the installed base for PS3 will be 70 million, and said for PS2 it will be 90 million and PSP will be 70 million. In other words, Sony and Nintendo will each have sold 230 million machines.
Deering said he believes the Xbox 360 and any sequels will experience "decent growth", predicting an installed base of 40 million by 2011. He observed this figure is higher than some analysts are projecting, adding, "This is not necessarily because I've got some issues with Xbox 360 in Continental European countries et cetera, but because of the set-top box hi-def phenomenon."
In addition, Deering predicted the number of potential gamers will rise to 2.5 billion worldwide when also taking into account the installed bases for computers and mobile phones.

Personally I think he's wrong and do believe the Wii will sell more than 80 million total to that date. I don't think the PS3 will even sell 70 million consoles LTD.

I have a hard time believing that there will still be 90 million PS2s in action in 2011, even if I think the chance of that is bigger than PS3 selling 70 million.

But all of this is just my opinion/guess, just as much as those numbers is his opinion/guess

[Ark]

...he's thinking too high...90 million ps2's? will ps2 still have support in 2011??

[tHeArsENic]

Sure it will be supported in 2011. I don't see why not. 2 years can go by like THAT. I mean, the PS3 is about 2 years old right? Right. Not sure about the 90 million tho.

[Kohi]

Unless Wii sales slow down to a fraction of what they are now I don't see PS3 or 360 for that matter coming close in sales.

[E6600]

His analysis is wrong

[Deathmonkey7]

I'd like to know why the PS3 suddenly speeds up in sales in the next couple of years. Do people suddenly find an amazing interest in PS3 in 2010 and buy them up like hot cakes?

[Romanc]

Originally Posted by Deathmonkey7

I'd like to know why the PS3 suddenly speeds up in sales in the next couple of years. Do people suddenly find an amazing interest in PS3 in 2010 and buy them up like hot cakes?

This is more or less what happened with the PS2 wasn't it? Not too sure it is set up for an encore, but something just might come along and change things around....

[Littleraven]

yea, if you really look at ps2s line up, none of the so called "big" games came out right at launch. ps2 had enough oomph to put dreamcast down and keep ahead of gamecube but it wasnt like it was godly right as it came out...only time can tell what will happen...things change drasticly in short periods of time...look at sega and nintendo...who would have ever thought that mario and sonic would be in the same game? go back like 5 years and people would call you crazy

[AkaneJones]

I'm sorry but you can't really compare the PS2's race to todays race. The fact is even though the PS2 had little support in way of big games at start, it's competition was digging it's own grave.

Sega utterly blundered the release of the Dreamcast by first stopping Saturn game production a year before they released the DC. Then they released the console a year to early. No one wanted the thing, because of the specter of the 32x sham that hung over Sega and had killed the Saturn. Lets face facts here Sega's inablitly to translate many a game that would have helped the Saturn, and make English version of big games also on Playstation, like Megaman 8 & Castlevania SotN, is the prime reason Saturn crashed and burned. The 32x didn't help matters either.

The fact is Sega had blown peoples trust by killing the Saturn. It just killed all the hype. They could have potentially over come the PS2, but ball drop after ball drop prevented it from being a serious contender.

So when it came down to which system a company was to support, PS2 was the only choice. Never mind the fact that PS was on top and had the best support the previous gen. There was also the fact PS game were fully compatible with PS2, and were still being made for several years in PS2's life. No competition heavy developer support and backwards compatibility with the biggest console the previous generation is what made the PS2.

Anyone expecting things to change so radically along last gens lines is a dreamer. It just isn't going to happen with PS3 hemorrhaging support from all angles. Even so deciding that PS3 might beat the 360 by generations end is still plausible.

[E6600]

One more thing PS2 launch price was $299 and not $599 like the PS3.