Nintendo to Smash Competition in March U.S. Sales

Make March Nintendo's, with Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter teasing an industry sales boost of 47 percent to $850 million for March driven primarily by sales of Super Smash Bros Brawl, the Wii, and DS. As usual, industry trade site Gamasutra has the scoop on Pachter's predictions ahead of NPD's March sales numbers due out this week. I'll have that data for you tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's what Pachter's forecasting:

700,000 - Wii
700,000 - DS
365,000 - PlayStation 3
320,000 - PlayStation 2
310,000 - Xbox 360
300,000 - PSP

Last year's March totaled $579 million, making this year's upswing tremendously impressive, all led by a single company (Nintendo) whose combined hardware sales (Wii, DS) alone would, by Pachter guesstimate, account for more than half of all competitor hardware sales combined.

Interestingly, Pachter also released a second set of estimates from video game prediction site The simExchange, which still favor Nintendo, but by a much smaller margin.

593,000 - Wii
593,000 - DS
327,000 - PSP
301,000 - PSP
296,000 - Xbox 360

Explanation? Says Pachter:

The Wii supply situation has made forecasting unit sales quite difficult. Since April 2007, Nintendo has manufactured 1.8 million Wiis per month, implying that U.S. share should be somewhere between 720,000 - 900,000 units per month (40 - 50% of total units produced). We believe that Nintendo has diverted a significant portion of its available supply to Europe since April, as the weakening dollar has made U.S. sales less profitable for the company.

Pachter says his 700,000 unit forecast assumes Nintendo's going to keep U.S. supplies at the low end of its historical market share, but says things should improve in the coming months.

Re-Play

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