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Game consoles hot
as summer
Aug. 09, 2002
By John Gaudiosi
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The
$100 May price drops on video game hardware from Microsoft and
Sony, along with a $50 slash from Nintendo, have successfully
spurred sales during the normally slow summer months.
In May and June, Sony remained the
console leader with its PlayStation 2, while Microsoft's Xbox
sales have nearly doubled, outselling Nintendo's GameCube
every month this year except April, according to NPD Group.
After the price drop, Microsoft's
May hardware sales of 230,000 units were nearly triple the
horrendous tally of April. Sony sold 520,000 units in May -- 2
1/2 times more than the month earlier -- and Nintendo
increased its GameCube sales by 37% to 112,300. In June, Sony
sold 693,000 PS2s, Microsoft sold 265,000 Xboxes, and Nintendo
sold 213,000 GameCubes. Microsoft and Sony sell their consoles
for $199 and Nintendo for $149.
"Xbox is doing extremely well right now in the
United States, which suggests that consumers don't mind
spending the extra $50," said Simon Price, an analyst at
International Development Group. "Nintendo has a killer lineup
of games shipping, so I expect GameCube sales to pick up by
late summer. Sony operates alone, selling huge numbers of
hardware, especially since the price drop."
At the end of its fiscal year, June 30, Microsoft
had sold 3.9 million units worldwide, compared with its
forecast of 5.4 million-6 million units. In the United States,
Microsoft sold 1.4 million units since the product launched in
November and is on course to sell an additional 4.5 million
units by year's end, according to International Development
Group.
Sony, which sold 7.3
million PS2s last year in the United States, is on track to
reach an installed base of 15.3 million U.S. units this year.
Nintendo is expected to come in third in this year's race with
4.3 million GameCubes sold by year's end, bringing its tally
to 5.5 million in the United States.
By June 30 of next year, Microsoft expects to have
sold 9 million-11 million Xboxes worldwide. Sony, which
already has sold 30 million PS2s worldwide, expects to sell an
additional 20 million units by March 31.
Three of Microsoft's games have sold more than 1
million units: the first-person shooter "Halo," which just
surpassed 2 million in sales; the street racer "Project Gotham
Racing"; and Tecmo's "Dead or Alive 3." That's a record for a
new console system, according to International Development
Group. As of June 30, Microsoft had sold about 20 million
software units worldwide, half of which were sold in the
United States. "Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind," the recently
released role-playing game from Bethesda Softworks, is selling
briskly.
The three hardware
giants are expected to ride the wave of low-priced consoles
into the fall as November and December typically account for
nearly 60% of hardware and software sales in a year.
With the price drops set, it's now
up to exclusive software to entice consumers to purchase one
or more of these next-generation systems. Sony and Nintendo
have the edge on Microsoft in this department.
Sony has the cinematic epic "The
Getaway" and the 3-D platform games "Sly Cooper" and "Ratchet
& Clank." The company also has such key third-party games
as Capcom's horror action-adventure "Devil May Cry 2" and
feudal Japanese adventure "Onimusha 2" along with RockStar's
"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City." Nintendo has "Mario Sunshine,"
"Star Fox Adventures," "Metroid Prime" and Capcom's "Resident
Evil 0" to lure gamers to its lowest-price console. Microsoft,
which recently delayed three titles until next year, has the
3-D platform game "Blinx: The Time Sweeper," Ubi Soft's "Tom
Clancy's Splinter Cell" and LucasArts' "Star Wars: Knights of
the Old Republic."
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