Analyst claims Sony and Microsoft are both right

22 January 2009 18:51 GMT / By Verity Burns

You may have read our stories yesterday on the squabbling between Microsoft and Sony over which has the better console, which is going to sell more and whose dad is bigger. Or something like that.

Well to settle it all for us, leading industry analyst Michael Pachter has decided to jump in the middle of the two and just speak some good, old fashioned sense.

And it seems that the claims by both Kaz Hirai on Sony's side, and Aaron Greenberg on Microsoft's side, had truth in what they were saying.

To recap, Kaz Hirai kicked off the battle of words by claiming Sony was the "official" industry console leader, while Aaron Greenberg responded by calling Sony "out of touch" and "complacent".

Now Pachter says that in fact, both are right with what they say.

"Aaron Greenberg is right that Sony likely won't catch Microsoft in the US until at least 2014", he said. "Kaz is right that Sony will likely catch Microsoft globally".

Pachter said that he thought it was "likely" Sony was currently ahead by 4 million units in Japan, and behind 2 million and 7 million in Europe and US respectively. However, he added that he believed Sony could sell 2 million more consoles per year in Japan for the next few years, and also use that time to up its number in Europe too.

"So by the end of 2011, Sony should be even in Europe, ahead by 10 million units in Japan, and behind by a greater margin than 7 million in North America", Pachter said "If the Xbox 360 outsells the PS3 by 1 million units per year for 2009, 2010 and 2011, the two consoles will be in a dead heat by the end of 2011".

If the rumoured price drop of the PS3 ever happens, Pachter does believe this will severely help the console in its battle with Microsoft.

"It's likely that the two consoles will sell around the same number of units, with a slight edge to Sony because of Blu-ray", he said.

Did you hear that Sony? Drop your prices and you will be victorious. Somehow we don't think it's going to be that simple though.

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