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Forbes Magazine is reporting on Xbox 360 estimates made by the analysts at Piper Jaffray. The figures from Piper Jaffray suggest that before the end of the year 1 million units will ship to North America, 400,000 to Europe and 200,000 to Japan.
The analysts predict the Xbox 360 will make its November launch in the US and Europe, but Japan will follow a few weeks later. The worrying thing is the small number of consoles shipping to Europe this year. With only an estimated 400,000 for the whole of Europe we can expect to see widespread shortages of the next-gen console.
Software support is expected to be strong with 15 titles for launch and a further 10-25 before the year end. Piper Jaffray predicts the titles will retail for $59.99 in North America, which supports news of a £44.99 price point in the UK. As for the price of the console, Piper Jaffray thinks Microsoft will release the Xbox 360 in two forms. For $299 you get the console as standard and for an extra $100 you will get a hard drive and an extra controller. It had been thought that every Xbox 360 would ship with a hard drive, but over the last few weeks this has been the subject of much doubt.
Piper Jaffray also feel that Microsoft will have much success with the Xbox 360 and will double their market share, claiming in the region of 30-35% of the videogame console market.
The Xbox 360’s launch price and the hard drive issue are expected to be cleared up at the Games Convention in Leipzig next week.
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