US October sales up 50%, predicts Pachter

Ahead of the release of US videogame software sales data for October, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter is predicting a 50 per cent increase from the same period last year.

He is forecasting sales of USD 555 million, compared to USD 369 million in October of 2006.

Most of the sales growth was driven by Activision's Guitar Hero III, which accounted for USD 100 million in sales. Pachter's estimate reflects USD 425 in sales from new platforms and USD 130 million in sales from current generation software sales.

Once again, in his estimate, the Wii will lead the market in hardware sales. He estimates sell-through of 450,000 Wii consoles, 325,000 Xbox 360 consoles, and 125,000 PlayStation 3 consoles.

Although share prices for the major videogame publishers have pulled back sharply of late, as investors again appear concerned that next generation console cycle strength will be insufficient to overcome a weakening economy, Pachter disagrees and thinks that solid software sales growth will continue well into 2008.

He expects October revenue to be up for Activision, EA, Majesco, and Take-Two, and down for Atari, Midway, THQ, and Ubisoft.