Analysts give December forecasts: video game industry will rise

The NPD Group will soon release the software and platform sales numbers for December, so it’s time once again to hear from our favorite analysts, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan and Colin Sebastian from Lazard Capital Markets. Check out the full article to find out what they predict for December’s results.

The year has ended but we’ve yet to hear the sales results for the last month of 2007. Soon we’ll be getting the sales numbers from the NPD Group for December, but for now analysts Michael Pachter and Colin Sebastian give their forecasts for that month.

The Consumer Electronics Association may believe that industry growth will slow in 2008, but that doesn’t mean it’ll start anytime soon. Both analysts believe that December will increase at least more than 20% from last year.

Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Morgan, believes that the industry will experience a sales growth of US$ 2.22 billion, 28% more than last year’s growth. Pachter adds to his forecasts saying that PS2 software sales will decline 41% year-on-year.

Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets believes it will increase by 20-25%, thanks to top selling games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty IV, Assassin’s Creed and Super Mario Galaxy.

Hardware-wise, Sebastian is more optimistic, generally giving more generous sales numbers than Pachter. They do agree on one point though: the Wii and the DS will still be top grossers for last month.

Nintendo Wii: 1.45 million (Pachter); 1.73 million (Sebastian)
Xbox 360: 1.25 million (Pachter); 1.45 million (Sebastian)
PlayStation 3: 875,000 (Pachter); 854,000 (Sebastian)
Nintendo DS: 2.45 million (Pachter); 2.9 million (Sebastian)
PlayStation Portable: 1.08 million (Pachter); 1.03 million (Sebastian)

Via Next Generation