Later this week (November 17 to be exact) the PlayStation 3 will officially make its debut in North America, but if one analyst report is correct, the U.S. may receive as little as 150,000 units on day one. Commenting on the "Battle Royale" set to begin this week when both the PS3 and Wii make their respective launches, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian noted that shortages for both consoles—but particularly the PS3—could give the Xbox 360 a boost.

"Based on our retail checks, we expect Sony to deliver roughly 150-200k to U.S. stores for launch day, with as many as 750k units sold domestically by year-end," he said. "We expect better supplies of Wii, with Nintendo replenishing retailers on a fairly regular basis, and roughly four million Wii units shipping to stores worldwide by the end of the year." He added that he expects Nintendo to sell "at least" 1.2 million Wiis in the U.S. this year.

Sebastian continued, "Supply shortages of new consoles could boost sales of Xbox 360 hardware, which should be available in fairly large quantities, in the near term, boosted by key new title releases Gears of War (Microsoft), Call of Duty 3 (Activision), Need for Speed Carbon (Electronic Arts) and Rainbow Six Vegas (UbiSoft)."

Officially, Sony has said that North America will receive 400,000 units on day one. If Sebastian is right, then that means either Canada is getting 200,000 units or Sony simply isn't shipping as many as 400,000. By the end of 2006, Sony expects to ship more than a million units to North America and 2 million worldwide.

Sebastian also pointed out that despite all the hype for the new consoles launching this week, the main drivers of growth this holiday will be the consoles already on the market as well as the portables, which continue to boost the industry (especially the DS). "Although sentiment regarding new platforms will likely impact stocks, we expect less than 15% of software sales to come from the PS3 and Wii this holiday; the more numerous Xbox 360, PS2 and handheld platforms (DS and PSP) remain key drivers of growth," he said. "We note that the financial impact over the holiday period from new consoles will likely be more significant for hardware manufacturers and video game retailers, such as GameStop."

Looking ahead, Sebastian expects the new systems to drive considerable industry growth. "We expect new consoles to sell well through the end of the year and this fifth major platform transition is likely to be the largest product launch in the industry's history. Importantly, we also expect next-gen hardware to be a major catalyst for accelerating industry growth into the new video game cycle," he stated. "Moreover, this cycle is likely to be more robust, as the move to high-definition consoles provides greater processing power, graphics quality and memory capacity - delivering higher entertainment value. We project a 10% CAGR for industry software revenues in the United States over the next 4-5 years, to approximately $11 billion in 2009/2010 from roughly $7 billion last year."