San Francisco (CA) – A veteran industry analyst has predicted that Nintendo will continue to dominate the global console market. According to Michael Pachter, the Wii’s low price point, “innovative” controller and compatibility with standard definition television sets are likely to provide it with a “competitive advantage” over the next two years.
“We expect Nintendo to sustain this competitive advantage by introducing a high definition version of the Wii, perhaps as early as the end of 2010, in order to convert its large installed base into true ‘next generation’ households,” Pachter wrote in a report quoted by IndustryGamers.
The report, titled “Money for Nothing, How Ancillary Revenues Can Extend The Console Cycle,” also hypothesized that the PS3 is likely to capture significant market share – or second place – due to Sony’s “victory” in the high definition DVD format war. Concurrently, the Xbox 360 will “fade to third place” as it suffers from a significant “lack” of popularity in Japan.
“We expect the Wii to capture 49% share of the U.S. and European market by the end of 2009, followed by the Xbox 360 at 29% and the PS3 at 22%. By the end of 2011, we see Nintendo ‘winning’ the console war by maintaining its share, with 48% of this market. We expect Sony to pull even with Microsoft, each with 26% market share. These estimates do not include console sales in Japan, which we expect to be dominated by Nintendo with over 65% market share through 2011,” stated Pachter.
In addition, Pachter surmised that videogame storage would increase exponentially to 1 terabyte or more – with digitally distributed software accounting for only 50 percent of all software sales by 2019.
