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Features

Analyze This: Handicapping
the 2006 Holiday Gift-Buying Season
They
are the professional analysts whose job it is to research, keep
track of, advise their clients, and opine to the media about the gaming
business.
Analyze This cuts right to the chase: Rather than reporting on
a subject, and throwing in quotes by analysts to support or refute a point,
Gamasutra
offers up a timely question pertaining to the business side of
the video game industry and simply lets the analysts offer their thoughts
directly
to you.
With the official launches of the PS3 and Wii this month, the holiday gift-buying
season for the video games industry has begun. We asked several
analysts, those who have taken part in this column throughout the
year as well as
new contributors, to give a general rundown on how the race among
the big three game companies will play out. This will be the first
holiday retail
season in which all three next-generation consoles will be on the
market (albeit one of them - the PS3 - in very limited quantities).
Each person's opinion is his or her own and will (probably) not necessarily
agree with their fellow colleagues'. This month, NPD's Anita
Frazier, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan, Ben Bajarin of Creative
Strategies, David Mercer of Strategy Analytics, Lazard Capital
Market's Colin Sebastian, and Screen Digest's Ed Barton discuss their views
on the coming holiday gift-buying season.
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