Merill Lynch back Xbox 360 to be market leader by 2011

The year head start helps - supposedly

17 November 2006 10:16 GMT / By Stuart Miles

It might all be PS3 and Nintendo Wii at the moment but that hasn't stopped Merill Lynch bucking the trend and coming out saying that the Xbox 360 is the console that will perform the best out of the three.

"The winner in the next-generation console battle is likely to be the Xbox 360, which is the leader in North America, the world’s biggest market", said Yoshiyuki Kinoshita, research analyst for Merrill Lynch.

Although most commentator's money is on the PS3 retaining its dominance Kinoshita goes on to say:

"We forecast respective market shares at end 2011 of Xbox 360 [at] 39%, PS3 [at] 34% and Wii [at] 27%, thus overturning Sony’s domination of the market with its PS2-based share of 69%, and doubling Microsoft and Nintendo’s respective market shares."

In Japan, it is predicted that Sony will take the lead with a 57% market share and Nintendo will take the bulk of the rest at 39% of the market. Figures for Xbox were not supplied.

In North America, Microsoft's numbers according to Kinoshita will be considerably better with the computer software giant holding the lead with 50%, while Sony and Nintendo will follow with 27 and 23%, respectively.

"In the next-gen console market, we see the end of any common global dominant platform", Kinoshita concludes.