Ahead of NPD's July U.S. sales results, expected this Thursday, Lazard's Colin Sebastian and fantasy video game prediction market simExchange have released their predictions, which, like Pachter's
earlier prediction, calls for the PS3 to outsell the Xbox 360.
Said Sebastian, who predicted the sales rise, "While July is still a seasonally slow period for video-game sales, we note there were several high profile new title releases during the month, including
NCAA Football 08, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s, and
Mario Strikers Charged."
Sebastian says the PlayStation 3 price cut should give the console an expected bump, while negative press over the Xbox 360's hardware malfunctions should cause sales to lag, and both the Wii and DS figures should reflect ongoing strong demand, with the two platforms "likely to remain in short supply throughout much of the year."
By publisher, Sebastian says Activision should see 200 percent growth in July on
Guitar Hero Encore, Guitar Hero II and
Transformers, Electronic Arts should see a 10 percent decline on a tough year-over-year comparison, and THQ down 30 percent with no significant releases during the month and modest numbers for
Ratatouille. THQ's numbers, he adds, should "improve later this month and through the holiday selling season."
Fantasy video game prediction market simExchange, which aggregates predictions from multiple users of its service, has similarly offered its hardware predictions at the following rates:
Nintendo DS - 486K units
Wii - 356K units
PSP - 241K units
PS3 - 164K units
Xbox 360 - 137K units
And, as with last month, the group has offered predictions for ten top selling software titles, with
Guitar Hero Encore leading the pack:
All Pro Football 2K8 (PS3) 31K copies
All Pro Football 2K8 (Xbox 360) 92K copies
Guitar Hero: Rock the 80s (PS2) 484K copies
Mario Party 8 (Wii) 155K copies
Mario Strikers Charged (Wii) 149K copies
NCAA Football 08 (PS3) 111K copies
NCAA Football 08 (Xbox 360) 474K copies
Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS3) 68K copies
Pokémon Diamond/Pearl (DS) 395K copies
Wii Play (Wii) 228K copies
Gamasutra will update with NPD's figures this Thursday as they arrive.
