October 18^th, 2002 (12:00am) - Strategy Analytics, the global research and consulting company, today released its latest global forecasts for advanced games consoles. The report, released to subscribers to the Strategy Analytics Broadband Device Strategies service, predicts global shipments of 41.9 million units in 2002, an increase of 84 percent over the 2001 level. Sony’s PlayStation 2 (PS2) console is expected to account for 63 percent of sales, followed by Nintendo’s GameCube with 21 percent and Microsoft’s XBox with 16 percent.

The research highlights the domination of the Sony system. By the end of this year, 72 percent of global cumulative shipments will be PS2 systems, compared to 16 percent GameCube and 12 percent XBox.

This report determines that the games console market is entering a critical three-month period which could determine success or failure for both GameCube and XBox. Several factors lead to the conclusion that Nintendo will probably exit the console market since the survival threshold for any game platform is now in the region of 15-20 million systems deployed. This continues to rise as games development costs increase. Furthermore, in spite of Xbox’s slow start, Microsoft will continue to commit the funds necessary to evolve their Xbox platform into a full-fledged broadband home entertainment system.

"This is a race for second place," says David Mercer, Vice President, Broadband Practice at Strategy Analytics. "The question now is whether the market can sustain three players in the longer term."