The Street reports: PS3 will outsell the rest in 2008 [Update]

by Nick Doerr { Oct 20th 2007 at 8:45PM }

It seems it's about that time where another source "reports" their guesses as to what the final result of this generation's "console war" will be. In a video from TheStreet.com and coming from Michael Comeau of RealMoney.com, it appears the PS3 is going to start collecting more buyers and game developers since he believes Wii games don't sell (just the hardware does). In doing so, it's implied that the PS3 will catch up to the 360 in 2008 as well. Oh, whoops, we spoiled the video. It's still worth watching because, like many hypotheses, it's interesting to watch how each guesstimation is logically derived. Or illogically. Your call!

[Update: "I do think Wii hardware unit sales will exceed of the PS3's, but I think there is a very high likelihood that PS3 software sales will be bigger than Wii software sales next year. Either way, I believe PS3 will see significant improvement in hardware units next year, which will get more third-party attention." For a written report, see here.]

Tags: analyst, the-street

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

eddyk @ Oct 20th 2007 9:02PM

Of course it will ... with lack of exclusivities ...

pizzanerd @ Oct 20th 2007 9:26PM

Whats up with the splicing in of the Nintendo games? Its not an add...

ruibing @ Oct 20th 2007 9:27PM

@1
Please just go buy that 360 that you wanted on some earlier post you made and be happy with it.

Anyways, not that I trust analysts since they are a dime a dozen, I hope PS3 will do well in the future.

Hyams @ Oct 20th 2007 9:47PM

@1: Pray, what is an 'exclusivity'?

It's so cute when 360 fanbois try to speak English...

sicklesdawg @ Oct 20th 2007 9:47PM

Dont know about outselling!...But it will Outlive the 360. And Sell more Games than the wii is for 3rd Parties. So yeah future looks good

Dragon @ Oct 20th 2007 10:09PM

wtf was up with the camera guy being drunk? thanks for showing us 1/2 his head for most of this video.

I camped the wii for 14.5 hours. After buying disapointing and boring games, I sold it for a ps3. Very happy with my decision. Wii has no games...the only titles for the system are major franchise names (mario, metriod, etc).

Poject X @ Oct 20th 2007 10:06PM

I agree with this man 100% LOOK AT mADDEN AND sPIDERMAN 3 THEY DID BAD ON THE WII AND SOLD REA well on the other consoles the same will happen with smackdown and Guitar Hero. TH e PS3 will make a combat in 2008 becuz it had a solid 2007 and its 2008 lineup look s step ahead the other imo.

yo'face @ Oct 20th 2007 10:08PM

Prepossessing and making absolutes about these types of things is for retards. What is englirsh?

ryano @ Oct 20th 2007 10:46PM

as a 360 owner, i sure as hell hope the PS3 does well in 2008 and beyond. i bought 360 to play awesome games, but i'm really curious as to what the PS3 is truly capable of.

no i'm not talking about bluray movies or home, i'm talking about the Cell processor and games on bluray. i want games that scream to me "this is better than the competition, this is why you bought a PS3." haven't seen any of that on PS3 yet. but it's only had a year so far...can't wait for next year!

Kevin @ Oct 20th 2007 10:52PM

Do we really need an analyst to tell us that the PS3 will do well in 2008?

I never really noticed til now but no one is ever saying.

OMG, 1 mU2T get taht gam3 for W11!!111!!

The one exception is Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
And that's only one kid.
But PS3. Holy God.
The people that I know have PS3 are going.
"Must get Assasin's Creed."
"HAZE, HAZE, HAZE.
Or seem to be humming the Little Big Planet music.

I myself have the mp3.

bs6268d @ Oct 20th 2007 11:01PM

agree 7 I camp out bought a ps3 too many kiddie games only games like was wii sports and zelda is ok

mccomber @ Oct 20th 2007 11:32PM

At first I thought you were referring to Mike Skinner, and I was all excited for some terribly-awesomtacular british rap.
But I guess this is good too, hope it happens if for no other reason than to hear the fanboy excuses and flaming hilarity that will ensue.

Devast @ Oct 20th 2007 11:43PM

I agree with ryano comment.

Sony has a few critical issues to attend to:
1) Disprove that the low speed Blu-ray drive and memory issues are a problem.
2)That their system can achieve improvements in games.
3)That the developers can create their games efficiently without compensation.

If they do it they are golden.

I don't think that it's safe to dismiss Nintendo. Cheaper platform. Less expensive games. The Wii is also kid-centric. That market isn't going away.

Skinchaser @ Oct 21st 2007 3:44AM

Traded in my wii a week ago while it was still worth something. Bought 6 games for it and it collected dust. Each time I bought a game for it that my kids requested they played the games for a couple of hours and never touched them again. At the same time I have bought 10 games for the PS3 and downloaded 3-4 more. It is used continuously for Movies,games and music. Paid full release price for both, 280.00 for the wii and about 900.00 for the PS3 package. 3 time the initial price but 10 times the value. Two people in my office have now purchased the PS3 and we have all spent hours playing warhawk together. Ages represented, 8,22,25,29,40 and 55(splitscrean all 3 systems). It also shows that a war game that isn't super violent can still be a hell of a lot of fun. Just like the PS2 the PS3 is doing everything I want it to and more and I don't have to pay a fee every month for the online component.

ZombieOrgasm @ Oct 21st 2007 3:57AM

*sigh*

Than comes next year.

"PS3 will outsell the rest in 2009.....seriously"

The Twizzler @ Oct 21st 2007 6:08AM

Totally agree with you Ryano and if more posts from both 360 and PS3 players were as objective as yours this would be a much better world to live in.

I own both systems, and while I personally use my PS3 more then I do my 360. I want to see both systems succeed if only for the fact that competition is good. It keeps companies on their toes trying to outdo each other for our hard earned cash. Keeps them innovative and putting out new products. Take away that competition and the "winning" company doesn't have to do anything special to get your money anymore. The whole wishing doom on one system over another is really just self defeating if your a gamer.

Now back to your regularly schedules Sony sucks/Microsoft sucks posts.

GL @ Oct 21st 2007 6:59AM

@13

Devast,

Please go look up the speeds of the BD 2x drive. You'll find that it's not the same thing as DVD 2x.

"low speed Blu-ray drive"

Plaguespitter12 @ Oct 21st 2007 8:21AM

Finally Analysts finally come around and recognize the winner of all the next generation consoles.

SDF @ Oct 21st 2007 9:45AM

One of the funny things about the "Blu-ray is not needed to play games" argument is that....you could make the same argument about the DVD, which was also not required in the first 2-3 years for PS2 - it could easily have done with a CD drive. But what it ACTUALLY did was to enable the PS2 to last for 7 years.

Similarly, the Blu-ray is NOT needed for games in 2007, period. But it will be in 2009 and will help the PS3 go on for, say, till 2013.
On the other hand, the absence of HD drive doesnt matter for the 360, because by 2009 expect the launch of the 361 (with BR/HD, wifi, HDMI and large hard disc - all the things PS3 had from the beginning)

The reason BR was an issue was p[recisely because it made the PS3 more expensive. Now, even with BR the PS3 is already close to the 360 in price.

Sauvage @ Oct 21st 2007 9:59AM

That camera works is totally awefull!

bamf @ Oct 21st 2007 10:38AM

He's exactly right on the point he made on the sales of the hardware to the software, the Wii owners are just not buying the games becasue there is nothing there to buy. My mate is a Nintendo fan and has been for years and he has yet to buy the Wii becuse he tells me there is no games for it. The same can be said for the DS, so many bought the DS and so many are buying it but they get Brain Training or Pokemon and then thats it. My sisters boyfriend has a DS and still only ever plays brain training on it.
It must suck for you if your a Nintendo fan to see these mediocre party casual games totally outsell the AAA titles and these AAA titles are no longer system sellers.
I also question who are the Wii owners? You hear allot that Nintendo have reached a new market of gamers but there is no data to suggest this, no one really knows what sort of gamers went into a store or online and purchased a Wii. IMO I think the majority of Wii owners are the Nintendo faithful and if thats the case then its not good news for Nintendo as it shows there is no games on the machine for the hardcore Nintendo fans.
Basically Nintendo wants to broaden their market to other casual gamers but they have forgotton their fanbase. So Nintendo strategy is to sell more Wii's to the casual gamer and release more casual party games to an audience that don't generally buy many games rather than release more hardcore games to an audience that will buy them.
I'm still not sure whether the Wii can reach the 25 million mark, I wouldn't bet against it but the sales of the wii have slowed down in Japan where the Wii is most popular. Sales are at 19k a week in Japan when not long ago they where at 80k a week. Does this suggest demand is dying due to all the Nintendo lot already owning one? Or that the hype is at a low becasue there are no games for a whole year and nothing seems to be coming for 2008 resulting the ones who intially wanted one, no longer do? Many reports say its simply because the demand is high in Japan but the stock isn't there but I refuse to believe that Nintendo cannot ship more than 20k consoles in Japan a week.

2008 will really show how popular the Wii is as more people will look to the PS3 and buying a blu-ray player as well.

Charles @ Oct 21st 2007 11:09AM

@17,

The Blu-ray drive is actually slower than the 12x DVD drive in the Xbox 360:

1x DVD = 1,350KB/sec
12x DVD = 16,200KB/sec = 15.82MB/Sec

1x Blu-ray = 4.5MB/sec
2x Blu-ray = 9MB/sec

The Xbox 360 therefore has a 75.7% faster transfer rate than the PS3. However, many PS3 games allow you to install the game to the hard disk which is obviously considerably faster than optical media and can cut down loading times. Personally I don’t bother since the level load times on the PS3 have never bothered me.

Devast @ Oct 21st 2007 11:16AM

GL, let's compare notes.

http://img418.imageshack.us/img418/5399/12xdvdvsbdrs0cg.png

http://www.emedialive.com/articles/readarticle.aspx?articleid=11404

Lastly one article to come out on this.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/1/17/6658

Devast @ Oct 21st 2007 11:55AM

Charles beat me to it. On paper it doesn't look good.

If reviewers keep harping on load times that won't help Sony for those that didn't jump the tech train.
If Sony don't have a good defense for it now, it might come back to bite them. Bitterness might be more damaging than skepticism. It usually lasts longer.

Inect @ Oct 21st 2007 2:04PM

@13 "low speed Blu-ray drive"

Blue ray 1x speed is 36MB/s
DVD 16x speed is 21.13MB/s

The ps3 reads at 2x or 72MB/s. the read speed it much faster

ryano @ Oct 21st 2007 2:15PM

hrm...
"1x bluray is 36MB/s" or
"1x bluray is 4.5MB/s"

oh me oh my, i dunno who to believe!

Andy @ Oct 21st 2007 2:16PM

I have 3 friends who have a Wii. One has Zelda the other has Metroid and one only has Wii Sports. Wii Sports is pretty wicked though. Maybe thats why nobody buys games for Wii because Wii Sports is so much fun.

Anyone else think it would be great if Sony and M$ joined forces and made a console?

Charles @ Oct 21st 2007 2:26PM

25. You’re getting Megabytes per second (MB/s) confused with Megabits per second (Mbit/s or Mb/s). As there are eight bits in a byte 1MB/s = 8Mbit/s.

1x Blu-ray is not 36MB/s but 36Mbit/s which is 4.5MB/s hence the 2x drive in the PS3 has a maximum transfer speed of 72Mbit/sec or 9MB/sec.

Mr Khan @ Oct 21st 2007 3:08PM

Anything's possible. PS3 could finally catch the fever that possessed PS2 to skyrocket in its early days (namely people wanting a good, relatively cheap multimedia machine), as well as the pantheon of good PS3 titles coming about (LBP, MGS4, FFXIII, GTAIV, GT5) and of course Home. but Wii isn't going to slow down in 08 between Wii Fit & Wii Music for the casuals and No More Heroes, Brawl, & Disaster for the hardcore, as well as better-realized WiiWare

The only console that could slow down in 08 is 360, it is getting NG2, but while an excellent game, it isn't exactly a big system seller

Deadpool @ Oct 21st 2007 3:41PM

@Andy

"Anyone else think it would be great if Sony and M$ joined forces and made a console?"

Nintendo and Sega are joining forces which is turning out interesting results. I think its pretty awesome seeing Sonic in the next Smash Brothers game. 10 years ago I wouldnt have thought that would ever happen and said that was crazy talk.

But Microsoft and Sony working together? Thats crazy talk! Youre crazy! J/K :)

Justin @ Oct 21st 2007 6:57PM

@ andy...i don't want to think about the chaos that would ensue if Microsoft and Sony decided to join forces and release a console.

They'd charge whatever they wanted, give us whatever games they wanted, release them whenever they wanted, basically DO whatever they wanted because there'd be no competition. No pressure on them to 'beat' somebody else to it, or to OUT-do the next guy. The Wii is simply not in the same ballpark.

While it'd be interesting to see what kind of machine the minds behind Sony + Microsoft's gaming divisions could come up with, I thoroughly believe a well read techie could probably conjure up the prospective specs before they could.