Menu Close

Famitsu’s Publisher Predicts PS3 Lead By Q4 2007

One of the biggest announcements at this year's Tokyo Game Show came from Sony's camp, when they revealed they'd be dropping the price of its lower-end PS3 in Japan. The drop brought the 20GB model down from $499 to $429 (about 49,980 yen); the 60GB model would still have an "open-ended" retail price tag.

Soon after this announcement, North American analysts expressed some doubt and concern ; UBS' Mike Wallace even went so far as to dub the move "a questionable business decision and a sign of weakness on the part of Sony." But despite this reaction, it appears that price drop was just the beginning. This past weekend, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper cited a study by Enterbrain, Inc., Famitsu magazine publisher, as expecting "further price reductions" and a vastly expanded software catalogue for the PS3 by this year's holiday season.

As a direct result, Enterbrain has predicted the PS3 will outsell its biggest next-gen rival in Japan, the Nintendo Wii, by the close of 2007. However, they did make a point of saying that the Wii would win out in the short-tem, predicting total Wii sales to hit 5.47 million by March, and the PS3 to have 4.13 million in that same time period.

And despite the European PS3 launch delay, Sony has officially stated their goal of shipping (not selling, mind you) 6 million PS3s by the end of March. Nintendo wants to ship that many by the end of this year, though, and recent reports indicate they may actually surpass that goal.