Chris Deering, the former president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), has predicted that Sony and Nintendo will tie in the battle for hardware supremacy by the year 2011.
Deering, speaking at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival today, presented figures obtained by triangulating data from both Screen Digest and IDG. Factors taken into consideration include the growth in the high definition and grey gamer markets, in addition to availability of new game engines and abundance of wi-fi accessibility.
According to Deering, the active installed base for hardware looks set to rise from 316 million to 500 million over the course of the next three years, with "two big mega-powers" leading the pack.
In terms of actual sales figures, he predicted that the DS would top 150 million units by 2011 (this figure includes any possible future iterations of the handheld device), with the Wii reaching 80 million.
Sony, meanwhile, is expected to top 70 million with its PlayStation 3 console, with the PlayStation 2 installed base at 90 million, followed by PlayStation Portable at 70 million. This brings cumulative sales of hardware for each company to 230 million units, resulting in a straight tie between the two platform holders.
Deering added that the Xbox 360 would see “decent growth,” forecasting an installed base of 40 million by 2011, noting the number is considerably higher than what some analysts have predicted.
“This is not necessarily because I’ve got some issues with Xbox 360 in Continental European countries et cetera, but because of the set-top box hi-def phenomenon,” he stated.