Analysts: what’s in store for the holiday season

It’s time once again for analysts to give their merry (and not so merry) predictions this holiday season. Two figures you may know well enough already – Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter and simExchange’s Jesse Divnich – comment on the Wii’s success, Manhunt 2 as a “poorly executed title,” and Crysis as “far from being called a success.” Read more in the full article.

 

It’s time once again for analysts to give their merry (and not so merry) predictions this holiday season. Two figures you may already know – Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter and simExchange’s Jesse Divnich – comment on what’s in store for the industry for the holidays.

Despite MDB Capital Group’s prediction that Nintendo might lose US$ 1 billion because of the Wii shortage, that won’t stand in Nintendo’s way to make a killing anyhow. Pachter predicts that they will surpass their record of US$ 1 billion from last year.

According to Pachter, December numbers usually reflect twice the sales numbers for November so he believes that the Wii could still go “in excess of US$ 2 billion.” The games he believes will top December sales are Unreal Tournament III and MX vs ATV Untamed.

On Divnich’s front, he comments on the recent Manhunt 2 drama and Crysis. For Manhunt 2 , he says that the “great concerns” over the game were proven unnecessary, as sales of the game were “depressing”:

Manhunt 2 (Wii, PSP, PS2) was released to the market with great concerns over its content as activist groups and parents claimed the Wii remote control added too much realism to an already violent game.

These concerns with Take-Two, the ESRB, and retailers have proven to be unnecessary as sales were a depressing 18,494 units sold in November – making little impact on the industry.

This should not be considered a victory for those groups who protested its release, but rather a victory for industry and gamers who did not fall for the market hype of what can only be described as a poorly executed title.

As for Crysis, he says that while the game beat Unreal Tournament 3 in terms of sales by a large margin, it is “far from being called a success,” saying that it could have done better in the market if it had lower hardware requirements.

Via Gamasutra