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(US) Hardware estimates for 2006?

PS2
4M - Strong first half of the year and a weak second half, might be offset by a price cut. Tons of great games are still in the piepline.

Xbox
0.6M - Slow and premature death of a relatively solid console.

Gamecube
0.8M - As more details of the revolution become available after E3, sales will dry up.

Xbox 360
3.5M - Unless Halo3 comes out this year, the 360 sales will suffer at year's end with all the hype the PS3 is going to generate.

PS3
0.75M - Severe shortages coupled with reluctance of third party publishers to make big bets and get screwed like they did last year with the 360.

Revolution
1M - The system will surprise a lot of people and carve its own niche market.

Game Boy Advance
1.5M - The migration to the DS, DS Lite, and to the PSP somewhat, is going to make their biggest impact this year.

Nintendo DS
5M - Great games and GBA audience should boost sales.

PSP
5.5M - Biggest beneficiary of good games, third party publishers supporting the sysetm more than any other, PS3 shortages, and more functionality. Could see another price drop in the fall.
 

JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
JoshuaJSlone said:
That is, though, giving 360 an extra half million top of Xbox's best year.
I was trying to be nice. I figured 3.2 million would offend a few of our fellow GAFfers, and even I don't think it'll be that low. So 4 milion+ and then I rounded up.

It could be that low!! All of these predictions aren't dependant on how the system is selling now, but how they'll be selling in the November and December.

Does anyone have he information for each of these system's successor's in the relative year. (PS2's first year and PS1 in that year, GCN first year and N64 in that year, etc...)
 

Gawaian

Member
PS2 = 4.5m
Xbox = 1m
GC= 1.6m

GBA = 2.5m
PSP = 4m
DS = 4.5m

Xbox360 = 4m
PS3 = 0.8m (that is, If Sony can produce that many units for the US launch)
REV = 1m
 
JJConrad said:
Does anyone have he information for each of these system's successor's in the relative year. (PS2's first year and PS1 in that year, GCN first year and N64 in that year, etc...)

PS2's first year was 1.1 million across three months.
GCN's first year was 1.2 million across two months.
Xbox's second year was 3.2 million, though it didn't start off the year with so much demand still there, having sold 1.4 million in the two months of its first year.
GBA's second year was 6.7 million, and third year was 7.8 million, though clearly we can't expect multiple handheld systems to be doing what a monopoly did.

Older than that I can't say.
 

heidern

Junior Member
I think everyones being very optimistic, heres my predictions:

Playstation 2 3,900,000
Xbox 902,000
Gamecube 1,110,000
Game Boy Advance SP 2,950,000
Nintendo DS 3,790,000
Playstation Portable 3,250,000
Xbox360 3,600,000
Revolution 1,940,000
Playstation 3 1,100,000

Total US Hardware Sold 22,500,000

And my reasoning:
LAST GEN!
ps2: Sales are already down almost 500K units over last year and will probably drop another 200K next month. I can also see it dropping 500K just in December, I was gonna predict lower, but I think Sony will cut the price to $129 which will help a little.
xbox: It should have been able to clear a million, but MS are determined to cut and run so I think at some point sales will fall and the Christmas boost won't be there.
GC: It's bringing up the rear, but as MS drop the xbox Nintendo will continue some semblance of a push with the GC and will continue to supply enough units.
GBA: Sales are down this year, but there is still a market for the GBA and its supreme portability and affordability. It will be consistent, but down.

CURRENT GEN!
NDS: I see tons of potential upside in the DS. Nintendogs is selling almost 1:1 with the system right now, and sales of other games like Animal Crossing are strong. Sales are up YOY, but I think they are lower than they should be, simply because the appeal is still niche. However DSL, Brain Training, a new Mario, Pokemon and the GBA audience simply shifting across to the next cheap portable platform are all candidates to widen the appeal and get the system the sales it should be getting. I'd predict 3M anyway, but the DS launch alone will push another couple hundred thousand. I reckon at least one other thing Nintendo do will catch on.
PSP: The psp looks like it is tracking behind last year. It's at 353K so far, and after March NPD I'd guess around 525K, a full 100K less than last year when at launch month it did 625K. Only last year after launch sales were really strong; 350K, 250K, 294K. I don't see it anywhere near that this year, especially with the likes of the DSL and new video iPods neutralising some of the unique appeal of the psp. Sales will be robust with a now mature library, but I don't see anything on the horizon sparking explosive growth.
xbox 360:
So far MS have dropped the ball big time, and I don't care if they are prepping March as some sort of relaunch, they've lost a lot of sales. It's currently at 410K this year, and I'd guess around 650K at the end of the month, comparable with where the psp was last year. But it's got a tough comparison with the psps post launch period and of course psp had GTA coming into Christmas. Yes there are shortages, but as we learned with the psp in Japan, once shortages are eased, doesn't necessarily mean sales will go up big time. Overall I think it'll have a stronger software lineup than the psp had post March 2005 which will enable it to compete with last years psp performance.

NEXT GEN!
ps3: It's all about supply. I think Sony will have some manufacturing issues and get around 2.7M units out. They'll do the smart thing and delay the Euro launch, getting aroubnd 1.5M to Japan and the rest to NA. Subtract 100K or so for Canada and you'll be left with a bit over a million this year.
Revolution: A bit of a wildcard and again it is all about supply. Ordinarily a system released in the holidays can get to around 1.5M in sales, but of course is always supply limited. I predict Nintendo will be fairly agressive in getting their hardware out(perhaps even June in Japan) with the US following perhaps in September/October. This will enable then to get an extra month or so over the typical launch and thus they'll be able to push 2 million into NA, subtract a bit for Canada and you get a bit under 2million in the US.
 

Jonnyram

Member
donny2112 said:
The amateurs with full predictions:
-snip-
Nice summary, but you got a few C&Ps wrong - there's no way cvxfreak would predict the psp would outsell the ds, for example ;)

Monorojo said:
PSP dominates in a way no one would have thought this year.
Just like last year.
 

ioi

Banned
Here's the data for last gen:

Code:
Year	 PS2 	 GBA 	 XB 	 GC 	 DS 	 PSP 	 X360 
2000	 1.1 						
2001	 6.2 	 4.8 	 1.4 	 1.2 			
2002	 8.4 	 6.7 	 3.2 	 2.3 			
2003	 6.3 	 7.8 	 3.1 	 3.3 			
2004	 4.7 	 7.1 	 4.0 	 2.3 	 1.2 		
2005	 5.6 	 4.4 	 2.2 	 1.7 	 2.6 	 3.6 	 0.6 
2006	 0.6 	 0.3 	 0.2 	 0.1 	 0.3 	 0.3 	 0.4 
[b]Total	 32.8 	 31.1 	 14.1 	 10.8 	 4.1 	 4.0 	 1.0 [/b]

I'm going to adjust a few of mine:

PS2 4.2m (tracking behing 2004 so far, will continue to drop although price drop may help)
GC 1.1m (should see a nice boost over xmas again, sell well as a budget machine)
XB 0.8m (virtually dead)
GBA 2.2m (pretty solid all year, but about 1/2 of last year's sales, and not as strong xmas)

Total 8.3m


X360 4.0m (similar to 2004 for XB, stong releases and solid sales when shortages die out)
PSP 4.0m (no strong launch this year as Heidern said, but maybe higher oct-dec with price drops etc)
DS 4.5m (strong DSL launch, Pokemon, NSMB, people moving over from GBA- very strong xmas)

Total 12.5m


PS3 1.0m (supply limited)
Rev 1.8m (Oct launch, good supplies)

Total 2.8m

Grand Total: 23.6m
Highest ever, but purely down to the amount of consoles on the market at once, which will be largely unprecidented. Never have there been 9 consoles all doing fairly well and I think they all have different enough markets and users to have their own appeal (GBA/GC budget machines, PSP/X360/PS3 cutting edge, PS2 solid, DS/REV innovative and different). Will be an exciting year. Just hope we still keep getting software numbers :-(
 

Farmboy

Member
Seeing as how I'm just a big coward, I won't make predictions. Rather, here are a few factors that'll impact sales:

Cube: Revolution sales, the gap between the launch of Zelda and the launch of Revolution (if non-existant then Cube will suffer, possible pricedrop, more games moved to Rev (Kirby).

Xbox: Pretty much on lifesupport as I doubt Microsoft is willing to cut the price and possibly take losses they can't recoup with software sales (and expanding the installed base at this point doesn't interesting to them either). But if they can (finally) manufacture them for cheap, who knows? My guess is their factories will be too busy pumping out 360s, though.

PS2: Pricedrop. All the other factors are in place to give PS2 a very good 'last' (?) year.

DS: Whether or not the Brain games will be successful. Mario, Zelda and the DS Lite will probably guarantee very good sales (as will Pokemon if it makes it out this year), but whether or not sales will be truly amazing is dependent on Nintendo's success in replicating the Japanese Brain-hype in the west.

GBA: How many people will migrate to the DS (or PSP), which in turn is influenced by price drops, the success of the DSL and the release of Pokemon.

PSP: Continued success is pretty much a certainty. Should do extremely well due to all the factors we already know of: price drop, PS1 games, great third party support and momentum. All it needs is a killer E3 line-up to seal the deal.

REV: Will probably sell as many as Nintendo can produce in the first months, which is probably more than the number of PS3's Sony can pump out (esp. since I doubt they'll really launch worldwide). Short-term success is only partially dependent on other factors such as price and the E3 line-up, because there are enough loyal fans that will snap it up regardless. Needless to say such factors are of paramount importance to ensure long-term success, but this year the Rev should sell out come hell or high water.

PS3: Same deal as with the Rev -- production will be the bottleneck, especially since it will likely be a very narrow one. Should Sony abandon world wide launch plans and focus on the US, things may be better. Again, factors such as the game line-up (esp. the extent to which it differs from the 360's) will come into play after the launch hype subsides.

X360: The E3 line-up. A shock announcement of Halo 3 by Christmas, though unlikely, will of course have a major impact, but a strong showing of other AAA-content could have largely the same effect, especially if a lot of the great content remains exclusive. Another factor is the number of PS3's Sony can manufacture, of course.

...Oh, all right then, I'll bite:

Cube: 0.9 million
XBox: 0.7 million
GBA: 2.8 million
PSP: 5.2 million
DS: 5.1 million
PS2: 4.2 million
PS3: 1.0 million
REV: 1.7 million
360: 3.6 million
 

«þ»

Member
Random estimates...

PS2: 4.2 million
X360: 3.6 million
Xbox: 700k
GC: 700k
GBA: 2.3 million
DS: 4.5 million
PSP: 4.5 million
PS3: Sellout (~1 million)
Rev: Sellout (~1 million)
 

Farmboy

Member
Shompola said:
You guys really think SONY can launch in late Q4 worldwide and supply over a million just in NA?

No, but I don't think the launch will be quite as worldwide as hoped, and I think they'll favor America. Those are big assumptions, granted. Could easily be half if they screw it up as badly than Microsoft.
 

jarrod

Banned
Shompola said:
You guys really think SONY can launch in late Q4 worldwide and supply over a million just in NA?
Not a chance. In fact, I doubt we'll see either a worldwide launch in Q4 (EU's definitely getting shafted to 2007 imo) or a million units for 2006 in any region but possibly Japan.
 

donny2112

Member
Jonnyram said:
Nice summary, but you got a few C&Ps wrong - there's no way cvxfreak would predict the psp would outsell the ds, for example ;)

Thanks for the catch. :) I had Billy Rygar's GBA and cvxfreak's PSP numbers wrong.

Here's an updated list with the new predictions included. :)

The professional:
Code:
(in millions)    PS2  XBX  GCN  360  PS3  REV  GBA   NDS   PSP     Total
Piper Jaffray    4.5  0.8  0.5  5.0  0.8  0.5  2.8*  2.8*  4.5     22.2
* original number combined GBA/DS total


The amateurs with full predictions:
Code:
(in millions)    PS2  XBX  GCN  360  PS3  REV  GBA   NDS   PSP     Total
ioi              4.2  0.8  1.1  4.0  1.0  1.8  2.2   4.5   4.0     23.6
Frankfurter      4.5  0.9  1.0  4.5  1.0  1.4  2.8   4.0   4.0     24.1
Restricted_Area  3.5  0.4  0.5  6.0  0.8  0.5  2.2   3.8   4.0     21.7
Billy Rygar      5.0  0.7  1.5  5.5  0.8  1.0  2.0   4.5   4.5     25.5
jarrod           5.0  0.8  1.0  5.5  0.5  1.0  3.0   5.5   4.5     26.8
Striek           5.5  1.0  1.2  4.5  1.2  1.3  2.5   4.5   5.0     26.7
cvxfreak         4.5  0.8  1.0  4.0  0.8  1.1  3.0   4.0   3.9     23.1
Stopsign         5.2  0.9  1.1  4.7  0.9  1.4  1.9   4.6   4.6     25.3
AniHawk          5.0  0.9  0.9  4.0  0.8  0.5  2.5   3.1   4.1     21.8
Koopakiller      5.0  0.3  0.3  2.0  1.2  1.0  4.8   4.3   4.0     22.9
JJConrad         4.5  0.9  1.0  4.5  1.0  1.3  3.0   4.5   3.8     24.5
Heian-kyo        4.3  0.8  0.8  4.2  1.2  1.0  2.8   3.4   4.1     22.6
donny2112        3.8  1.0  1.3  4.5  1.0  1.5  3.2   3.7   3.5     23.5
kia              4.5  1.0  1.2  4.0  1.0  1.5  4.0   5.0   4.0     26.2
<nu>faust        5.0  1.0  1.0  6.0  1.0  1.5  2.5   4.0   4.0     26.0
Amused_To_Death  4.0  0.6  0.8  3.5  0.8  1.0  1.5   5.0   5.5     22.7
Kurosaki Ichigo  4.8  0.7  0.9  4.0  0.8  1.0  2.8   4.4   4.6     24.0
MakMan           4.8  0.6  0.9  4.2  0.7  1.1  2.2   4.2   5.0     23.7
Gawaian          4.5  1.0  1.6  4.0  0.8  1.0  2.5   4.5   4.0     23.9
heidern          3.9  0.9  1.1  3.6  1.1  1.9  3.0   3.8   3.3     22.6
Farmboy          4.2  0.7  0.9  3.6  1.0  1.7  2.8   5.1   5.2     25.2
«þ»              4.2  0.7  0.7  3.6  1.0  1.0  2.3   4.5   4.5     22.5
sonycowboy       4.7  0.8  1.0  4.2  1.0  1.2  2.8   3.7   3.5     22.9

Average          4.5  0.8  1.0  4.3  0.9  1.2  2.7   4.3   4.2     24.0


The amateurs with partial (but actual) predictions:
Code:
(in millions)    PS2  XBX  GCN  360  PS3  REV  GBA   NDS   PSP
argon            5.0  0.5  0.8  6.0  0.7  1.0
GhaleonEB        4.5  0.8  0.5  5.0  0.8  0.5
The Experiment                  5.3  1.0  0.6        2.3   3.8
Phoenix          4.5  0.7  0.4  4.3  1.1  0.8
Monorojo         5.0  0.8  1.1  4.0                  3.5   5.5
Lo-Volt          5.1  0.7  0.7  4.4  0.9  1.0


Edit: Added sonycowboy's numbers.
 
I'd tend to do ranges vs a single number, but here I go.

Playstation 2 - 4.7M
I think a $119 price drop is likely @ E3 and it should do wonders for hardware sales. We are definitely behind last years pace, but sales were miserable for the last 9 months of 2005 vs most other years as the lack of a price drop hurt (except 2004 which had shortages for 6 months). A price drop to $129 would cause me to lower my numbers to 4.2M or so.

Xbox 360 - 4.2M
I think it's going to sell incredibly well, but be hampered by the shortages through March, and then be range bound by the higher price point. What will be very telling is how November and December are. Yes, the other systems will have shortages, but there will still be 9 systems out (maybe 8 if the Xbox has run out by then), and that necessarily limits how high the 360 can go.

Nintendo DS - 3.7
I expect the Lite to bump sales up a bit, but certainly not like Japan. The US rarely sees that kind of explosion from a redesign if it's not accompanied by a price drop. The lineup of titles, the redesign, and a lower price point are why I expect it to end up above the PSP. If they drop the price, bump up the numbers by at least 500k

PSP - 3.5M
The $199 price point will help, but I still don't see any must have titles that are going to push the hardware. Again, the multifunctionality as well as the prospect of having current gen titles on the go are what are going to sell it. Plus the next gen launches are going to hurt the PS2 & PSP the most, IMO.

Gameboy Advance - 2.8M
Sales have dropped precipitously for this platform and the almost complete lack of new titles will hurt. If they do a price drop to $59, I can definitely see some significant upside to these totals.

Rev - 1.2M
It's all about availability. The lower tech nature should make production move along more smoothly. If shortages are not an issue, I think the high end is still around 1.5M for the year as the addage that "they'll sell every unit they have" isn't true if the product is highly available. (Looks at the PSP, original Xbox, GCN, & GBA launches).

Playstation 3 - 1.0M
I expect Sony to consider the US to be the absolute #1 priority for the launch and to make sure that at least 1M units hit here. Also, they always hit or exceed their shipment totals, so for them to be saying 1M unit/month production is certain, there could likely be some upside to that.

Gamecube - 1.0M
The system is dead, but with Zelda coming, should still see some life. Calling it a budget system doesn't make sense, when that hasn't helped the system in the ~32 months it's been at $99.

Xbox - 0.8M
Supply will run out. If not, it will sell at least as much as the Gamecube.

Total System Sales
22.9M
 

donny2112

Member
sonycowboy said:
Gamecube - 1.0M
The system is dead, but with Zelda coming, should still see some life. Calling it a budget system doesn't make sense, when that hasn't helped the system in the ~32 months it's been at $99.

Nice point about the impact of being a "budget console" degrading after 2.5 years, but it did produce a sizable increase for the first 3-4 months @ $99. I keep hoping Nintendo will drop the official price of the GameCube to $50 and then continue producing it for at least another 9-12 months post-Zelda. The Revolution is backwards compatible, but ceasing production of a system < 1 year after its (potentially) biggest game is released seems short-sighted.
 

Orgen

Member
PS2 - 4.5 M
Xbox - 0.8 M
GC - 1.2 M

NDS - 4.1 M
PSP - 3.7 M
GBA - 2.5 M

X360 - 3.9 M
PS3 - 1 M
Revo - 1.2 M
 

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Rev will outsell both ps3 and xbox 360 this christmas...you heard it here first. Why?
Big N will ship more units and at a cheaper price with a possible mario game at launch and Zelda GC.

2007 ps3 will lead big.
 

donny2112

Member
The results are in!

First the professional:

Piper Jaffray - 7.1

That means he was 7.1 million off for the year. Even more astounding is that every single "amateur" who predicted did better than that except for Restricted_Area. I guess we're not too bad analysts, after all. :lol Our average was 4.2 million off the total for the year, and here are the top 5 individuals.

1. cvxfreak - 3.4 (Also the only one who got the total for the year correct.)
2. Kurosaki Ichigo - 3.7
3. JJConrad - 3.8
3. sonycowboy - 3.8
5. Orgen - 4.0

Congratulations, cvxfreak! :D

Note: I rounded everything to one decimal place before totalling up. e.g. 360 was 3.9 whether it was 3.9324134324 or whatever. Also, I only calculated diffs for amateurs with full predictions.
 
teepo said:
so.. what were the actual totals?

To the nearest 100k,

NDS - 5.3m
PS2 - 4.7m
360 - 3.9m
GBA - 3.2m
PSP - 3.0m
Wii - 1.1m
NGC - 0.8m
PS3 - 0.7m
XBX - 0.4m

Total - 23.1

From the GAF average donny posted above...
Code:
(in millions)    PS2  XBX  GCN  360  PS3  REV  GBA   NDS   PSP     Total
Average          4.5   0.8   1.0    4.3   0.9   1.2   2.7     4.3    4.2       24.0
Actual             4.7   0.4   0.8    3.9   0.7   1.1   3.2     5.3    3.0       23.1
Diff                 0.2  -0.4 -0.2   -0.4  -0.2  -0.1   0.5    1.0    -1.2      -0.9

Looks like the handhelds screwed up the estimates in general.
 

jarrod

Banned
PSP threw me off! It dramatically undershot even my expectations. :lol

Same for 360 to a lesser extent... other than that I was pretty close. :)
 
Monorojo said:
PS2 5M
Xbox 0.8M
GCN 1.1M
360 4M
PSP 5.5M
DS 3.5M

Wont even post Rev or Ps3, dont know how both will be stocked so not able to predict. Both will have aroun 90%+ sellthrough tho.

PSP dominates in a way no one would have thought this year.


:lol :lol :lol :lol Mono :lol :lol :lol :lol
 

starship

psycho_snake's and The Black Brad Pitt's B*TCH
Mono was really funny. :lol
I was off 4.5m for the year, but Xbox (360), PSP, and Mom & Pops retailers really threw me off.
 
sonycowboy said:
I'd tend to do ranges vs a single number, but here I go.

Xbox 360 - 4.2M
I think it's going to sell incredibly well, but be hampered by the shortages through March, and then be range bound by the higher price point. What will be very telling is how November and December are. Yes, the other systems will have shortages, but there will still be 9 systems out (maybe 8 if the Xbox has run out by then), and that necessarily limits how high the 360 can go.

22.9M


sonycowboy always seems to say 360 didnt perform as well as it should have in 2006, but it surpassed his prediction. A prediction he says would mean 360 sold very well. Or did I misunderstand some earlier posts?

His prediction is pretty spot on though. Nice.
 
mylilbuddy said:
sonycowboy always seems to say 360 didnt perform as well as it should have in 2006, but it surpassed his prediction.
Ehh? He predicted 4.2, and according to lochnesswoman's post it hit 3.9.
 
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