It should be interesting to see what the software rush that Nintendo has planned for the last few months of 2010 does for hardware (and software) sales.

Reading analysts -- Pacther and others -- they seem to have ignored all the games Nintendo showed at E3 (many of which are coming out for the Wii this year) and are fixated on the console hardware they see Move and Kinect selling. I wonder if some of these people are still trying to make points about the Wii since they predicted it would not sell well and it is Nintendo's top-selling console of all time.

Mike from Morgantown

Whatever you think of the hardware momentum Wii has, it isn't saturated in the USA - that is the comment that irks me - its 15 months ahead of PS2 by units and over the last year Wii has sold more in the USA than PS2 did in its absolute zenith 12 month period for hw, and similar figures to the PS2 sw zenith. Even without WS / WSR bundles Wii software units are damn near identical ltd to PS2 (and they'd be higher if Wii had a higher attach rate - but the LTD figure is there).

Beyond that, Wii reached 30m units at $200.  Sony had cut the price of PS2 to $199 to $179 and then to $149, in addition to launching the PS2 Slim to reach 23m in the same timeframe it took Wii to reach 30m. It doesn't really matter anymore that the Wii has a lower attach rate in the USA - as long as it is outselling PS2 at comparable timeframes in the USA by anywhere from 25% (ltd) to 55% (over months 34-45 for both systems) serious volumes of software are going to be moved.

Wii is trending towards 55m-60m or something crazy in the USA (PS2 will get to 47m or so).

55m * 9 games per owner = 495m units sell through in the USA. 60m * 8.5 games per owner = 510m

PS2 in the USA is probably at something like 46m * 9.5 games sell through in the USA (440m or so), and Sony has said shipments to the Americas are over 500m units.

The reason Pachter gets annoyed is if publishers had figured out what to do on Wii by now, they'd have pushed Nintendo to 30-35% of sw units on Wii, but since they haven't really, Nintendo still has 40-45% of sw units on Wii. I told him not to worry in an email though - I reckon there are 20 games that will eventually go platinum launching for Wii between August and December - most of which are third party.

Ubisoft: Just Dance 2, Michael Jackson, Shaun White Skateboarding, Dance Workout

EA: The Sims 3, NBA Jam, Harry Potter, NFL Training Camp

Konami: Defjam, DDR, Deca Sports 3

Activision: DJ Hero 2, Icarly, Goldeneye, Rapalla, Spiderman, Call of Duty

Disney: Epic Mickey

Take Two: New Carnival Games

Sega: Sonic Colors

Bunch of other stuff will do ok too - Fifa, Madden, NHL games, Create, Need for Speed, Rabbits in Time, My Sims, etc. Key older stuff will continue to be big as well - NSMB Wii, Wii Fit Plus, Wii Sports Resort, EA Sports Active, Mario & Sonic, Just Dance.

Then you have DKC: Returns, Kirby, Wii Party, Pokepark, Metroid from Nintendo. Third parties should do very well on Wii this Christmas, as Nintendo is really only covering platformers / party games with its own stuff. Sports, Music, Fitness, Dancing, Party Games, Shooters, Racers, etc are all more open than in the past.