Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan has given his predictions once again as to how the upcoming NPD reports will look for video game platforms. For the month of September, Pachter expects the Wii to come in second place among home consoles and third overall, trailing just behind the Nintendo DS. Rival Microsoft and their Xbox 360 are expected to take a small lead over the pack for September due to the release of Halo 3, despite a late month release.
Just behind the 360′s predicted 450,000 unit sales in the United States, the DS and Wii are expected to reach monthly sales of 430,000 and 425,000, respectively. The PSP (252k), PS2 (220k), and PS3 (150k) fill in the gap ahead of the Game Boy Advance’s predicted 65,000 unit sales. Expect strong sales for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and continued strong sales for Wii Play and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
It’s interesting to note that the Wii and DS are expected to only trail by a small margin for the month, even with heavy promotion from Microsoft to coincide with the launch of Halo 3 and price cuts and new SKUs coming out of Sony. “Nintendo remains the least promotional of the three hardware manufacturers due to the strength of its Wii, with demand expected to outstrip supply well into next year,” said Pachter.
