Videogame analyst Michael Patcher predicts that the Nintendo Wii due to the Christmas rush of people purchasing the console means this will effect the console as supplies will may not recover meaning that the console will be not available for the next 3 months. Even with this, though he does believe that the Nintendo Wii will still be the top system at Christmas.

Well-known videogame analyst Michael Patcher says that it will take as long as three months for Wii stock to even out after the Christmas rush.

The Wii is already widely sold out around the world as Nintendo's motion control antics have become the most desired Chrimbo gadget for it's second year, and its unlikely that supplies will recover until April, according to Patcher.

He did, however, state that despite the lack of stock, Nintendo will top Christmas sales with Wii, predicting the company to sell 1.7 million consoles over the Christmas period, while he expects Microsoft to sell 1.5 million 360s and Sony to flog 800,000 PS3s.

Elsewhere in the report, Patcher points identifies a current sales spike for console overall, despite consoles of the current generation being generally more costly than the previous gen.

Patcher states; "While next generation hardware unit sales are more modest than they were in the analogous period of 2002 (when console prices averaged under $200), recent price cuts and new hardware (slim PSP and the 40Gb PS3) and the release of key games (Halo 3 and Guitar Hero III) triggered a spike in hardware sales over the last few months that we believe will continue over the remainder of the year," according to Gamasutra.

tidus04 via computerandvideogames.com »