Why is Capcom Making Unusual Sales Forecasts?

Recently, Capcom publicly stated how disappointed they were with the way Sony’s PS3 console was experiencing such awful problems with online hacking of the PSN. Capcom claimed to be losing a lot of money because of sales that potentially could have been made during that time period. Most videogame analysts thought Capcom was speaking out in a very unusual way, since we didn’t hear other third-party game developers making bold public statements like that.

Today I learned some of the interesting sales estimates Capcom has made for 2011. These sales estimates are very controversial considering the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 worldwide. First, I want to remind you that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has sold over 53 million consoles worldwide, while Sony recently announced the PS3 has sold 50 million consoles worldwide.  However, as I have confirmed on Controversy, Sony deserves the reputation they now have for publicly announcing inaccurate sales figures.

Capcom’s PS3 sales forecast shows an estimate of 8 million software units sold from the release of 16 different software titles. Capcom’s Xbox 360 sales forecast shows an estimate of 4.7 million software units sold from the release of 14 different software titles.

Even though the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3, Capcom believes the PS3 will produce nearly double the software sales of the Xbox 360! This sales forecast doesn’t seem to make sense when you consider the Xbox 360 versions of software usually outsell the PS3 versions. For example, Crysis 2 is a recent high-profile multiplatform release resistant to statistical outliers. When sales figures of Crysis 2 started coming in, we saw the Xbox 360 version had outsold the PS3 version by a ratio of 1.7:1.

What are your thoughts about Capcom’s sales forecasts? There is no doubt the majority of third-party companies see greater revenue on Xbox Live than they do the PSN. Sega recently released Sega Rally HD Online exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade. With that in mind, why would Capcom make such outrageous sales forecasts favoring the PS3 by nearly a 2:1 margin?