As much bad press as Sony has gotten since E3 2006, there may only be one company with worse news. A report released today by DFC Intelligence says that, “Xbox 360 is running behind” and that “the Xbox 360 lineup is heavily weighted towards the second half of 2007. If the Xbox 360 can have a strong holiday 2007 they may be able to maintain at least a second place position for another year.” The report states that the PS3 could surpass the Xbox 360 in total sales sometime in mid-2008.
“If Halo 3 and other products fail to drive Xbox 360 sales, the system will soon flirt with numerous unsavory scenarios, the worst of which is the danger of becoming a distant third in the video game market share battle,” the report says. “In 2007, the news from the Xbox 360 front has not been encouraging. In the first six months of calendar 2007, Microsoft shipped slightly over 1 million units of the Xbox 360 compared with Nintendo shipments of over 6 million Wii systems and Sony shipments of over 4 million PS3 systems. The Xbox 360 had a one year lead, but the competition is catching up fast.”
It is important to note that shipments are not the same as sales. It is simply the number of units shipped out of a factory to retail. Retailers already had stock of Xbox 360 and other systems before this year’s shipments were sent out. However, it is still an indicator of how well a system is doing, since it reflects the demand from retail. If a system is selling well at retail, they need to be restocked and shipments increase. It looks like Microsoft is betting all of its chips on holiday 2007. If as Shane Kim says, “we want to sell 100 million Xbox 360s”, they need to get on it fast.
