@casz the longer the hddvd bluray fight is going the more likely comboplayers will be the winner. In the end the question is can bluray kill off hddvd before comboplayers are cheap enough. This depends most likely on warner

Three games? Cute I somehow doubt that this will be enough and already pumping out the next round of sequels could lead to mushroom poisoning. No nintendo is more intelligent than that. They need third party games and they will get them the question is only if they will have enough quantity and quality.

Kyros said: Three games? Cute I somehow doubt that this will be enough and already pumping out the next round of sequels could lead to mushroom poisoning. No nintendo is more intelligent than that. They need third party games and they will get them the question is only if they will have enough quantity and quality.

Kyros: "I am saying that smash is the last big nintendo franchise"

 You said flat out that it was the last one.  You're already proven wrong by the fact that there's more.  And we're already starting to see more 3rd party devs move.  Capcom and MH3 is likely just the beginning. 

I could debate the greatness of the star fox and mario kart franchise but you are right they still have one or two games in the backhand but we can agree that this won't be enough yes. And yes there will be third party games but until now it is pretty dire, released games as well as announced ones. They either need lots of surprise announcements or another wii sports ( the best wii game )

Kyros said: I could debate the greatness of the star fox and mario kart franchise but you are right they still have one or two games in the backhand but we can agree that this won't be enough yes. And yes there will be third party games but until now it is pretty dire, released games as well as announced ones. They either need lots of surprise announcements or another wii sports ( the best wii game )

 You could debate the greatness of Mario Kart, and I could point out how it was the best selling Gamecube game. They will need third party support, but they are not out of first party franchises yet. I would say they have plenty of great games to release this generation.

@Kyros:

Wii Fit and nongames say hi, Nintendo has plenty left to play

 I hope that was sarcasm (hard to tell on the net)

Mr Sulla

 "Now we finally have a new report in which - surprise! - the PS3 still manages to outsell the Wii worldwide. I guess 14 months of sales data wasn't enough to change their initial assumptions. Seriously though, you don't want to mess around with the Screen Digest Group. These guys are hardcore. They're like the George W. Bush of sales forecasting. Once they make up their mind, they stick with it, and no amount of real-world evidence or logic will get them to change their minds. Yeehah!  "

Well said my friend, I cant believe even the biggest ps3 fanboy could take this prediction seriuosly. 

tsk tsk Rol, don't you remember our little latin lesson? "Cum hoc ergo propter hoc"? ;)

In reality, the situation is a lot more complex than to break it down to these factors. While it's true a large and varied game library does attract buyers, much more influential is the opposite, that a large user base attracts games. We are all aware of the "third party development spiral of doom/win" theory, and it's the one most people use to rebut the "PS3 will win because of the games" scenario.

So the real question is, how do we make a game console sell a hundred million and dominate the Industry? Well it would seem that is rather simple. The game console that looks like winning early on will almost certainly win. This pattern makes sense, since developers will flock to the winning console in order to make the most money. (Always follow the money)

So now the question becomes "how do we make everyone think we're going to win the console war?". Well if I knew the answer to this I wouldn't be posting it on a video games forum. But looking at past statistics, there are a few things that help:

1) Brand name. This is especially big in the SNES/Genesis war, where Nintendo very slowly overtook Sega to be number 1
2) Price. People are more likely to pick up a cheaper system
3) Killer app. The important thing about a killer app is it has to come EARLY. Not necessarily early in your console's lifetime, but before you are being consistently outsold by your competition. Otherwise the killer app just appears as a "blip"
4) A head start. If two consoles are selling at roughly the same rate, but one has, for example, 7 million more users, then one year down the track when your next game is going to be released, you can expect the gap to be about the same. Which platform would you prefer develop for?
5) I'm sure there are more that I can't think of right now

Things that don't seem to help:

1) Processing power
2) Extra features

Now of course, these things don't hinder (except indirectly by raising the price), but I haven't found any evidence to suggest that they help. 

Whatever the magic formula is, the important part to remember is that once a console gets momentum, this momentum doesn't stop, in fact, it usually spirals out of control. You'll notice that loser consoles tend to have their first two years decent and then tail off quickly, whereas the winner consoles have first and second years better than the losers, and then the third and fourth years are better still. So while it's a marathon, it's a special kind of marathon where people give drinks to whoever's winning and throw stones at whoever's losing.