Analysts forecast GTA IV hardware boost in May
- Posted May 17th, 2008 at 06:25 EDT by Mike Harradence
- 3,998 views
- 7 Comments
Industry analysts have stated that they expect PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sales to rise significantly this month on the strength of Grand Theft Auto IV, after game’s release failed to stimulate sales of both platforms following its release in late April.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter was quick to express his surprise at recent hardware sales, after April’s NPD numbers failed to showcase the spike in hardware predicted by the analyst on the strength of Rockstar’s highly anticipated crime sim.
“We were surprised by relatively weak PS3 and Xbox 360 sales, especially given the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV late in the month,” commented Pachter.
“We had expected sales of both consoles to increase month over month, as we thought that many potential console owners were waiting for the game to launch before purchasing a console.”
Lazard Capital Markets Colin Sebastian, however, notes that the game was only available on the market for five days during the April sales period, suggesting May would promote significant growth in PS3/360 adoption.
“While a pick-up in PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware sales benefiting from GTA IV is not evident in the [April NPD] data, we believe May could show some sequential improvement,” he said.
NPD’s Anita Frazier also shared this belief, adding, "... Since [GTA IV] was only in the market for five days during this reporting period, that [hardware] sales lift could very well be evident in May data."
Comments
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ihsanqueen
- 7:12am BST - May 17th, 2008
- 1
Doesn't really matters to me, analyst predict's can be wrong, and then I want the sales of PS3 rise but X360 and Wii are not.
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zombieking36
- 9:06am BST - May 17th, 2008
- 3
5 million were sold in the first week, WoW has 10 million ctive accounts, and yet you expect to be having constant sales after the bulk of your fan base has bought it?
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Morganator |
Hero_Nakamoura- 9:10am BST - May 17th, 2008
- 4
I think that they shouldn't have even expected anything in April given that the game was released on the second to the LAST day of the month. Stupid analysts forgot to use logic in this time around.
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AclayPS3
- 2:42am BST - May 18th, 2008
- 7
I remember reading articles and both Sony and GameStop stated that PS3's sales "Spiked" because of the release of GTA4 and numerous articles stated that the PS3 moved more hardware than the Xbox 360 after the release of GTA4. I guess that the majority of this hardware was indeed sold in May because GTA4 was only avaliable for a few days in April.
I wonder if Sony stated that PS3 sales "Spiked" because PS3 sales were higher than Normal for a April buying season, or because PS3 sales were indeed substantially high.
But based on what I've read, I think that the PS3 will have sold more consoles in May than the Xbox 360 in the United States. The 360 only outsold the PS3 by just 900 consoles and just barely got by.
But I have to admit that I was extremely shocked by how low the sales were by both the 360 and PS3.... I was thinking that PS3 console sales would be around 300,000 for April, but it didn't even hit 200,000.
And the Wii still continues to surprise me.... over 700,000 consoles sold in one month... At this rate, the Wii might hit 30 million consoles sold worldwide by December... and just think the Gamecube was out on the market for 4 years and didn't even sell 25 million units worldwide, but the Wii has been out on the market for about a year and a half and has sold 24 million... I guess there's no stopping the Wii until the Wii shortage ends.
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