Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has said in an investor note which has been transcribed by GamesIndustry that he believes the PlayStation 4's announcement has boosted investor confidence in the core gaming market.
"There appears to be light at the end of a long tunnel, with share prices for publishers beginning to rally after underperforming the market for most of the last three years. Once Sony announced the PS4 in February, investor confidence returned somewhat, and share prices for Activision, EA and Take-Two have all risen for most of the year," Pachter commented.
"We expect a similar impact from Microsoft's of its next-generation console prior to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). While there have been no announcements from Microsoft confirming even the existence of as next-generation console, we think that the company is likely to announce before E3 in June," he continued.
There were rumours earlier this year that Microsoft were due to announce their next home system at a special event this month in a similar vein to the PlayStation 2013 meeting in February. However, any such meeting would likely have been announced by now. Regardless with nine weeks to go a pre-E3 reveal remains a distinct possibility.
Even so Pachter noted "an announcement [is] likely as early as this month. Once both next-generation consoles have been unveiled, we expect further information on specifications, features and pricing to emerge at E3."
The analyst went on to say consumers would be "dazzled" by the new consoles and would be encouraged to upgrade. He also said new technologies would allow for 'smarter' game characters and that next-gen games will be "more visually stunning" than their current-gen counterparts.
Sony saw its share price rise by 11% following the PS4's announcement while Japan's second largest brokerage raised the company from 'neutral' to 'buy'.
