Who said the Wii would need Ports? You port away from the popular system to the unpopular system ... My point was the 17% of the population who is wealthy had no problem buying a HDTV and may buy a PS3 but the average consumer is staying with SDTV. The PS3 is a product which 75% of the people do not have the equipment for currently and only 55% are predicted to have the equipment for at the end of 2010 ... The Wii is the system for today which is why it is selling better, will continue to sell well through most of the generation and will gain most of the third party support.

There will be more HDTVs then then any of the consoles, PS2 sold 42 million in the USA even if PS3 did that good there would be more households with HDTVs then PS3s! theres goes that argument.... but my househols is only 30k a year... me 12k of that, and we have a $2000 HDTV ? ohh... NOT wealthy people can afford HDTVs... your argument is totally dead....but to truely end it. you can get a 30" hdtv for $500 my god thats to expensive for people LOL.

I think this chart is very important but you have to interprete it completely different. The reason why ps 1/2 sold so much in their years 4-7 and n64/xbox sold so poor is to find in the previous years. I guess after two or three years in a console-generation-lifecycle, the winner becomes clear, and after that, the most third party resources are moved to this console and it starts to sell really well. The sales in the late years are not dependent on the company producing the console, but on the sales of the console in its first years. In my opinion, you are also mixing up this point if you say that nintendo consoles don't sell well after the next generation is launched. the reason why n64 and gc stopped selling after the launch of gc/wii was that nintendo gave them up already a year before. i mean, who would do different? if you were nintendo, would you still release games for the gamecube right now? of course not, because it is a dead console and it already was before wii launched. but if you have a console with a userbase like ps2 (or gba, which is a good example for what i'm trying to say altough it's a handheld and not a console) you can still make profit by releasing games for it, and, what is even more important, third parties can make profit too. I hope you understand what i'm trying to say, I think i've written it a bit difficult... there are a few other points where I slightly disagree, but they have already been mentioned by other persons. In general, your post is a very good read and it contains some important observations.

Like it was pointed out already, the Wii doesn't need to reach such high levels of sales. Because Nintendo already makes profits on each console sold. If the Wii reaches 40+ M of sales, it will already have succeeded past everything Nintendo have hoped, and if it gets 60+ M, or more than the NES, Nintendo can say they reached nirvana in their strategy. Everything beyond 70+M will be a godly bonus to them. Then, even though I know a Wii2 is already being prepared, Nintendo will have no incentive to can their Wii. I think they will have the same strategy as with the DS, even though the Wii2 will not be just a redesign : it will be completely retro compatible, but more powerful with HD and all. But they will release it when they predict the Wii numbers dwindle below their competitors', and they will wait holidays period. They won't just destroy their Wii sales like that, if it's still selling strong, that would be nonsense. But they will transition nicely into the Wii2, so that even if competitors copy their features, consumers will stay with what they know works, and won't jump ship (natural evolution). That's assuming the Wii wins though, by selling more units than the other two.

1. Actual console shipments were about 103 million for PS1, currently probably just about 115-120 million for PS2 (though 125 and 135 will be hit easily), and about 61 million for NES. 2. While PS1/2 did expand the market in NA and Japan, the primary reason for their growth over NES/SNES/Genesis was the tapping of the European market. 3. Nintendo systems haven't lasted after their successors showed up... Not true. No lesser-selling system has maintained huge sales into the next-gen, while every higher-selling system has. The one sort-of exception to this is the SNES--the most mismanaged "winning" system of all time. 4. The NES was considered outdated in 1983, compared to the 16-bit computers of the time... And continued to sell well into 1992, even as the market became cluttered with much more powerful systems. The 32-bit PS1 was "outdated" when the N64 launched, but sold well over 90% of its lifetime total after that point, continuing good sales into 2003. In fact, the PS1 sold more during PS2's lifetime than GC or XB did. The power of a system doesn't matter compared to its ability to continue to sell to new markets. Considering Wii is basically an "up-to-date" system for 2003 or 2004, there's no precedent for it not being able to reach at least 2012 with good or great sales. 5. People suggesting that 25 or 35% of PS1/PS2 sales came from replacement systems are nuts. You can tell its not ridiculously high just by looking at attach rates: Do you really think PS attach rates are 13:1, 14:1, 15:1?? That much higher then every other system in history? Nah. Edit: 6. Nintendo will be continually upping Wii production for as long as they need to to meet demand. It won't halt at 1.2m/month.