Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter reckons the only way Sony will gain the upper hand on Microsoft in the on-going hardware race is to make significant cuts to the price of PlayStation 3 – something that he doesn’t see happening anytime soon.
Chatting with IndustryGamers, Pachter went on to observe that Kinect is spurring Xbox 360 adoption rates in the U.S., while PlayStation Move is continuing to underperform.
“The only way PS3 passes 360 is to be priced at a lower level, and I don’t see that happening,” said Pachter. “Microsoft appears determined to ‘win’, so I don’t see them allowing Sony to gain a pricing advantage, ever.”
Meanwhile, EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich believes that while the sales gap between Microsoft and Sony’s console continues to expand in favour of the former, he feels PS3 deserves a little more credit, and boasts the most active users to boot.
“As someone who isn’t afraid to claim winners and losers in this industry, I must say the PlayStation 3 never gets enough credit for its accomplishments. I don’t foresee being third-place this generation as the ‘loser,’” said Divnich.
DFC Intelligence’s David Cole also offered his two cents on the matter, believing PS3 has a shot at trumping Xbox 360 in terms of “active units” by 2014. However, Microsoft’s platform is poised to shift the most hardware overall, he noted.
“When we look at active units we see the PS3 passing the Xbox 360 in the U.S. in 2014,” he said. "However, the Xbox 360 is forecasted to have sold more units at that time…actually a slightly wider gap than today.”
Also optimistic on PS3’s fortunes was Billy Pidgeon of M2 Research, who stated Sony’s black behemoth could overtake its rival in a couple of years – that is, providing Sony can continue to churn out quality triple-A software.
“Speculatively, PS3 achieving a larger installed base in the U.S. is possible in two to three years, particularly in the event of Microsoft launching a next generation console in that time frame,” said Pidgeon.
“Of course, increased PS3 penetration is also contingent on Sony’s continued release of quality first party system selling games.”