Pachter: 16.3 million PS3s and 21.3 million 360s in US and Europe by year-end

Half a million in a month would seem to be achievable with their eyes shut.

Anyway, stop buying it, you fools! They’ll never drop the price if you keep paying through the nose for ‘em.

That said, Woolies had 40gb machines with a copy of Assassin’s Creed for £279 the other day. Which isn’t that bad, unless you’re a stubborn skintflint like me.

I would have though the PS3 figure to be higher. That’s only another 5 million in America and Europe throughout the rest of this year.

Based on past performance it’s probably not a good idea to be too optimistic where PS3 sales are concerned. The analysts got burned at least once already.

True enough. I still think the big variable is price. I guess it depends when they’re thinking of making the big drop. Maybe it’s too soon to approach 200 quid this year.

I’d be surprised not to see a cut in the run up to Christmas – October/November time. Even if it’s just another £50 off.

They’ve got to come down a bit, and I hope it’s more than that. The magic happens at 200, so it depends just how seriously they’re taking the “long term” plan, imo.

This is Sony, though – they generally only reduce the price by ‘as little as they think they can get away with’.

I think it’ll really depend on four things – how much they can reduce costs before Christmas, how well Blu-Ray sales do (and the corresponding prices of stand-alone Blu-Ray players), what the 360′s Christmas line-up looks like and most importantly… how well the PS3 is selling by late summer.

I should be an analyst. Give me money!

‘Speaking to videogaming247, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter…’

Are you genuinely in *real* personal contact with gaming’s most powerful prognosticator?

If so, maybe you can answer this. Who is he? Where did he come from? Why should we listen to him? I only ask as before ‘the internet’ started posted his sayings all the time, I really had no idea who he was.

Googling his name just produces what ‘the internet’ re-quotes. He doesn’t even have an entry on Wikipedia…

So what’s the deal here? Are we actually embarking on a dangerous voyage into the mind of a man who… doesn’t exist?

I agree with all of that, but I think there’s a missing factor: PS3 doesn’t seem to have a “megaton” game for Christmas. Last Christmas I was looking at MGS, GT, FF and Killzone for the end of 2008, and with that lot a huge hike would have been a no-brainer. None of those will be there now, and it seems they’re relying instead on Resistance and LBP. Like, I’m sure they’ll both be great, but I’m not convinced they’re enough for that real explosion, especially if the price stays between 200-300.

@GM: He’s certainly real. He’s the hardest working man in games analysis. No joke.

I guess there’s still time to unveil a bunch of stuff before Christmas, and there’ll be a handful of 2009ers to hype too like FFXIII and God of War and whatever Fumito Ueda and co. are up to. Guess we’ll have to wait for E3 in July to find out about anything concrete, though.

We like to push him hard!

..and he’s definitely real. I unleashed the internet sniffer dogs and found him. He’s out there alright!

Hmm, that is very true. Eight Days and Tears of Blood could be this year. It would be a tad spasticated to go into Christmas with a game about sack dolls and a Resistance follow-up.

Oh, and there’s Motorstorm 2, lest we forget.

wow

I don’t think you should underestimate either LBP or Resistance.

The first Resistance might not have set reviewers alight (now there’s a nice thought) but it’s sold a gazillion and it’s still in the charts. Resistance 2 is likely to be a huge seller for them.

Similarly, LBP is probably the most anticipated PS3 game to date. It might not have space marines doing oiled up bum se… shooting, but it’ll have huge appeal outside of the hardcore gamer crowd. And it’s got a look n’ feel that drags people in, regardless of whether they’ve heard of the game or not. Monster hit, betcha.

I hope LBP’s a monster hit, but I don’t know whether it will be. I keep swinging from ‘of course it’ll be massive’ to ‘it’ll be a hugely undeserving failure despite across-the-board rave reviews’.

You’re right about Resistance. It’ll do the business, definitely. But I’m a big LBP cynic: I’m really not convinced it’ll do it for them. Hope I’m wrong, and all that, but it smacks to me of “we’ve got to have something lifestyle to broaden the market’. I think that style of product works when the machine’s cheaper.

Adding to what Blerk says, I don’t think you can completely discount the effect of 3rd party games. Yes, everyone is on about the 360′s downloadable content, but I’m sure GTA IV will shift a few PS3s, as will Resident Evil 5.

There might not be many games that are obvious system-sellers in and of themselves on the near horizon, but I think a lot of cash-strapped gamers play a bit of a waiting game and like to see a console reach a sort of critical mass before buying it.

I’d predict a decent sales surge if and when Sony release the oft-rumoured 80Gb model over here too.

Resistance 2 and Motorstorm 2 do absoluetly nothing for me whatsoever. I don’t want to sound uber negative, but the reason why Resistance is still charting is because ‘most’ gamers like a shooter, and on the PS3 Resistance is all you’ve really got.

It isn’t a very good game at all.

You may be right about LBP, Pat – it’s certainly a gamble. I can see it going either way – either amazing sales or mediocre sales. No mid-ground. I’m going to gamble on the gaming public fancying something a bit different for a change.

Oh shit, what a fool! Money down the drain!

Edit: and don’t get me wrong on Resistance and Motorstorm, morriss – they do nothing for me either. But I think we already highlighted the fact that I’m ‘special’.

LBP is an odd one. I consider myself to be a pretty committed gamer, but as much as I admire the concept, I don’t really feel it has much appeal to me at the moment. All this user-created content stuff is well and good and I completely understand there’s a massive modding community out there, but does your average Johnny Gamer really want to spend time making stuff for the wider community or would they really be happier playing in a GTAIV-shaped sandbox instead…?

Same goes for the Singstar / Buzz / Wii Sports / Brain Training crowd – those games are about quick fix, social gaming; not creativity and physics games.

I worry that LBP may actually end up being more hardcore than most titles these days are, and that’s not really what Sony need.

Resistance is excellent, it really is. It’s staying in the charts because it’s good. There’s a decent number of shooters on the PS3, and R:FOM is one of the best.

Uncharted wasn’t a big seller when everything about it screams ‘GIGATON’. Maybe like Uncharted, people just won’t buy into what LBP is all about.

I’m struggling to picture the 360 line-up for Christmas, but maybe that’ll change at E3.

It’s definitely true that the more hardcore gamer will get the most out of LBP. I just hope there’s enough levels in there provided by the developers themselves, rather than leaving most of it up to the player. Not all level designers are created equal, you know.

An interview in Edge the other month confirmed that there’ll be an “at least” 50-level single-player story mode bundled with LBP. The content-creation and endless supply of user levels aren’t the be-all, end-all of the package, regardless of what Sony would have you believe.

As for Uncharted, I think it suffered a little from a split personality – it didn’t seem to know whether it was a game for the Tomb Raider crowd or for the Gears of War crowd, and ultimately it falls through the cracks in the middle. That said, it’s still charting fairly regularly and has apparently shifted over a million units so it’s not done as badly as you might think.

Did you talk to him for real? Tell him I’m a big fan next time.

I wish with Uncharted they’d just been honest about it and changed the protagonist’s surname to ‘Fillion’.

Tonka: every Pachter story we run, we actually talk to him.

We don’t make it up!

I guess I’m sad but I find that sort of cool.
/embarrassed to find something geeky cool smily

Oh, wait. Is that a wink wink we do make it up smily at the en there?
/head scratch smily

Well if you like that sort of thing then stick around as something is about to happen you’ll definitely like.