US: Analyst predicts Wii December victory

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has predicted that Wii emerged as the best selling home console of December in the US.

Overall he reckons Nintendo’s machine sold 2.6m units. Just behind it, he foresees Xbox 360 sales of 2.5m units – more than double his predicted PS3 sales of 1.2m units.

Though this would put Wii ahead in the monthly battle, the good news is really reserved for Xbox 360.

If these figures are correct then Microsoft’s machine is the only one to enjoy year-on-year growth, in this case an impressive 91 per cent. By comparison, Wii would be down 32 per cent and the PS3 12 per cent.

"Overall, we expect an 11 per cent decrease in current generation hardware units, with console hardware unit sales down 3 per cent and handheld hardware unit sales down 24 per cent," Pachter wrote.

"We expect strong sales for the Xbox 360 due to Kinect, and we believe that Kinect console bundles sold especially well. PS3 sales should be down, as sales from Move are unlikely to offset difficult comparisons from last September’s price cut.

"Given competition from the other consoles and as disclosed by Nintendo, we think that the Wii had another down month. We expect Nintendo DS hardware sales to also continue to struggle until the introduction of the Nintendo 3DS in March."