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A Japanese game magazine publisher is predicting that the Sony PlayStation 3 will trail the upcoming Nintendo Wii half way through 2007 but will finish the year as the leader. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun believes that Sony’s unexpected prerelease domestic (Japan) price cut is expected to help the console spur initial and maintain strong sales from its launch in November until December of 2007 even with the postponement of the European release. The hard numbers they predict are 4.13 million units for the PS3 and 5.47 million for the Wii by March of 2007. The magazine then goes on to predict that as 2007 finishes up there will be more games for the PS3 as well as a worldwide price cut (as Blu-ray becomes more popular and cheaper to produce) pushing Sony into the #1 spot between these two late manufacturers.

Remember Microsoft’s Xbox 360 will have had about a year head start on both Sony and Nintendo and is expected to have total global sales of 17.46 million by the end of 2007—with no thanks to the Japanese market which has not taken to Redmond’s gaming system.

Read [eCommerce Times]

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