Who is really in the lead?

[DarkNight_DS]

your mother said:

Sqrl said:

misterd said:
Not Sony, of course (jab, jab) but with the new announcements of 360 and Wii sales, the Wii is just a little under 2,000,000 behind the 360.

But that doesn't count failure rates, does it? Would that be enough to put the Wii over the top?

What do you think?

If you are going by shipped numbers the Wii is 2 million behind, but I don't see the point in going by shipped number. See the only argument to going by shipped numbers is that "its the number that matters for the company" but in reality that number doesn't matter for the company nearly as much as the resulting profits so why not go by that number instead?

Ultimately the number that matters most to 3rd party developers and probably most gamers is the actual install base as it represents actual interest in the consol. And by those numbers the wii is only behind by about 600k.

Not really. As a developer I would be equally interested in attach rates.

A console with an actual install base of, say, 10m but with an attach rate of 1 would be much less attractive than a console with half that user base but with an attach rate of 4.

Edit: As a developer I could also care less about financials because as long as the install base and the attach rate makes my development costs add up, then all is well and merry for the developer!

 This is a bit misleading, if console A has an install base of 10 million and console B also has an install base of 10 million but console A has an attach rate of 1 but console B has an attach rate of 6.1, as a developer I'd have to look at the cost to manufacture games for both consoles.  If console A cost 1/6.1 the cost of making a game on console B, they equal each other out.  

As it stands, the attach rate for the Wii at this point in it's life is pretty good especially considering that it's install base keeps growing very fast.  The more people who buy your console, the lower the attach rate at first, the only time your attach rate starts climbing higher is when your sales reach a plateau.  A system with a high attach rate has signs of a slowing growth rate overall.