Pachter: PS3 battered 360 in the US last month

Call me an old cynic, but isn’t that far fewer PS3s than the half a million they were predicting pre-MGS launch?

Here’s mine for fun:

[360] 230K
[NDS] 585K
[PS2] 160K
[PS3] 340K
[PSP] 235K
[Wii] 820K

I actually think the return of the BC PS3 made more difference than MGS4 though. Lets see if I can beat Pachter again.

820,000 Wiis? Are you sure?

/Ultravox

Blerk: In May they sold around 169k Wii a week for a 4 week month. I’m predicting that they’re going to do 164k a week for 5 week month in June. It’s not that outlandish.

There were big game releases in May though, weren’t there? What came out in June?

Wii sales have never been linked to games releases in the US… they’re linked to stock availability. They’ll probably continue to be until supply has caught up with demand.

Anyway, I’m either going to look like a sage or I’ll end up looking like Pachter.

You could never look as wrong as Pachter. Microsoft are probably jumping for joy that he’s predicted a big PS3 win again.

He has to be right in terms of a PS3 lead this time, innit. MGS must have done the business. Last month wasn’t exactly stacked with premium 360 releases, unless I’ve forgotten them*.

*This is entirely likely.

Oh, I’m not denying that – it’ll win out for sure. It’s just that every time Pachter says the PS3 will have sold “X units”, it never turns out to be nearly as big an X as he’d predicted.

I keep meaning to ask him for an interview. I should.

I reckon PS3 will do well, but I think that’s mostly down to the 80GB MGS4 bundle being (probably) the last chance anyone will have to get a backwards compatibile PS3 and therefore getting snapped up as soon as it went up for pre-order.

MGS4 itself will have had an effect, but less so than the 80GB machine. I reckon it’ll be business as normal plus a spike for all the 80GB models they sold. Anyone know how many of those Sony shipped? Business as normal next month when its just the 40GB on sale.

They kept running out of 80gb machines, so no doubt it’s not as many as they could have sold if they’d had decent stocks. I do wonder why they’re so blinkered when it comes to the appeal of the 80gb/BC hardware. Every time they put a few out there they sell out in hours, and then they look surprised, like it was the last thing they expected to happen.

Don’t these figures include that mad rush that brought down the Amazon servers for MGS4 PS3s?

Yeah, sony really are missing a trick sticking with the 40GB. Wandering around Gamestation this lunchtime, there was a guy in there asking if they had any 60GB models available pre-owned, and the guy said they get one or two a month but they usually sell the same day. There’s massive pent up demand for them – I really wish I’d bought one (or several!) last year when they dropped the price to £350…

Sales so far….

PS3

Region Units sold First available
Canada 342,400 as of February 1, 2008 November 17, 2006
Europe 5 million as of May 6, 2008 March 23, 2007
Japan 2 million as of March 30, 2008 November 11, 2006
United States 4.29 million as of May 1, 2008 November 17, 2006
Worldwide 12.81 million as of March 31, 2008

360

Region Units sold First available
Canada 736,400 as of February 1, 2008 November 22, 2005
United States 10.08 million as of May 1, 2008 November 22, 2005
Europe 5,415,053 as of June 14, 2008 December 2, 2005
Japan 602,558 as of March 30, 2008 December 10, 2005
Worldwide 19 million as of April 25, 2008

Make of that what you will.

Inaccurate numbers are inaccurate.

Why are they inaccurate? Please tell us PT?

Errr, care to explain PT?

It could be mostly because they’re shipped figures and not sold… although it’s worse than that. It’s shipped mixed with sold.

Really? Interesting. Chuck us a link, I am intrigued.

Link?

And the 360 ones are not?

oooo! Conspiracy theory’s!

Your bias is showing again Newbie. Both figures are inaccurate and no I can’t provide a link. Check the accurate data using NPD / Media Create figures and… well, not check the European data anywhere because it’s not released.

My bias? ^_^

here we go again……… So if both figures (360 and PS3 are wrong I’m guessing you mean), how do you know they are far out?

just admit to the publicly released stats man!

Sure, find me where GFK / Chart Track released the European numbers. They might be out by 10, they might be out by 1 million for all I know… they could be vgchartz numbers, they could be shipped.

Data is either verifiable, and thus useful, or it’s not.

I just wanted to know why you always think these figures are inaccurate and what you base your theory on. You’ve questioned them before but not backed up your claims. I was under the impression that both Sony and Microsoft are now quoting sales figures not shipped.

As for bias. I do sometimes wonder how many people on here work for MS? Most forums on the web are biassed towards them. Its probably mostly to do with the type of gamer that frequent these sites I suppose – the 360 definitely has a larger ‘hardcore’ user base.

BTW, I am probably slightly Sony biased as I do prefer the PS3 to the 360, which I know probably accounts for my thoughts on the subject.

klanger13: I’m a stats / sales geek which means I know exactly what regions we have accurate numbers for (US / Japan) and which we don’t (Europe / Rest of world). I’d love for Chart Track / GFK to release the numbers like NPD and Media Create do, but they don’t.

As for shipped vs sold. All companies now do “Sold to retailer” for their figures to mean sold, in the past Sony used to use “Shipped to warehouse” to mean sold. What we’re really looking for is “Sold to consumer” because Microsoft and Sony have both been guilty of overstocking the retail channel to hit their targets.

Ok so your saying you think the US figures are right but not the Euro/Jap ones?

If you got them from VGChartz then you may as well just chuck them all in the bin.

Always interesting. I’ve seen you question them before but just wondered why. So I suppose it depends how many of the units are sitting on shelves?

NPD: US (Used to release Canada numbers too, but not any more which is why the ones you listed are so out of date). Accurate.

Media Create: Japan. Accurate.

GFK / Chart Track: Europe. They’re never released, so I have no idea where your numbers for Europe are from. Likely taken from Sony / MS “sold” data which means they’re shipped to retailer numbers.

???: Other. Not released, though they seem to be included in the totals to the tune of 1.19m for the PS3 and 2.44m for the 360. Unless of course that total number is not a sum, but is the total shipped figure taken from MS / Sony financial data.

June is a 5 week reporting period vs last months 4. If Wii was doing 170K a week in May, it’s not inconceivable for it to be doing the same in June and get near enough 800K. Factor in some extra supply here and there given that demand still exceeds supply in the US and it’s not unthinkable.

I think Pachter’s dead on with 750K mind.

Speaking of numbers, anyone know why VGChartz has failed to publish weekly figures since late June?

Yes I know they are not the most reliable source, but given their own methodology is consistent week to week it still is an interesting indication of trend.

Oh crap… I was miles off. So was Pachter. =/

Numbers aren’t out yet

You don’t have my mad skills morriss… though you wish you did.

morrissesesesss

don’t believe what you read until it’s on here.

I massively underestimated the effect that guitar hero ds game would have. Stupid casuals.

Don’t beat yourself up!

People actually bought Guitar Hero DS?

WHAT?

Yeah, it sold loads. Nintendo were even boasting about its sales figures during their press conference on Tuesday. Think it did something like 300k in the first week.

Told you you’d overcooked those Wii figures, Psycho!