With PS3 and Xbox 360 sales declining now that the PS4 and Xbox One are on the scene, EA has already reported the impact the new console generation has had on them, but EA President and COO Peter Moore believes Sony and Microsoft will still support their previous generation consoles for a couple more years:
I will say this, both Sony and Microsoft recognized, in particular, Sony, have managed their PS2 to PS3 transition very well. Having ran that Xbox business, as you know, I think Microsoft is committed to the Xbox 360 for a number of years. So I would anticipate seeing both Sony and Microsoft get behind their current-gen platforms at least for the next 2 years and bring us to a 10-year cycle as we saw in the previous cycle.
Also during the call, Moore answered about whether or not the 10 million combined units sold forecast for the PS4 and Xbox One by March is still set to happen in EA’s eyes:
I don’t know if it is 10 million, Arvind [Bhatia of Sterne Agee & Leach], right on the nose. But I stand by my comments.
I think it’s going to actually be in excess of that and I’m feeling pretty good about what I’m seeing and hearing and visiting retail and listening to retailers talk about their flow of inventory. I think you can see, you do the store checks. Both Sony and Microsoft seems to be doing a pretty darn good job of flowing inventory in between now and from what I’ve seen, certainly, by the end of our fiscal quarter on March 31.
I think it’s 10 million-plus, Arvind.
The latest sales numbers for the new-gen consoles place the PS4 at 4.2 million sold and the Xbox One at 3.9 million shipped, so Moore’s prediction of over 10 million combined units by March 31st seems very likely at this point.
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