Analyst: Pepper spray incident shows games are "a must have holiday item"

With a quote that will surely haunt us, EEDAR's Jesse Divnich has predicted a strong holiday season sales performance for the games industry.

"I believe once someone starts pepper spraying a crowd of people to obtain an Xbox 360, you know you're a must have holiday item," Divnich told IndustryGamers, probably flippantly.

During this year's Black Friday sales in the US, one shopper unleashed pepper spray in an attempt to grab a bargain price console.

The analyst picked Microsoft and Nintendo to outdo Sony this year, but added that third place isn't a poor result.

"Given the transition we are seeing to the HD consoles, Microsoft and Sony will likely both walk away with smiles this holiday season," he said.

Nintendo, on the other hand, has the portable field to itself with the 3DS, and the console's Black Friday sales have convinced the analyst it is on the rise again.

Despite all this positivity, Divnich warned that the digital revolution is almost certain to see physical sales below previous years' performance - again.

"We really need to be realistic about holiday expectations. We are going into the 2011 holiday season down single digits in the physical markets and we'd be crazy to think the spirit of the holiday season will lift us to positive comps for the year," he said.

In contrast, Michael Pachter has tipped a bumper year.