The 360's a tough call. Usually the third full year on the market is the peak year for a console in terms of hardware sales, save for very rare cases (like the NES, which didn't peak until about 1988). The odds, going by historic data, are very good that the 360 will actually hit the market apogee point, meaning that we are quite likely to see fewer 360s sold in 2009 rather than more. If I had to put in a reasonable estimate, I'd say it should do between 8 and 10 million next year, putting it at around 36 to 38 million.
The PS3 is even harder to make bets on, mostly because of the fact that the price is a barrier to success and a price drop could easily change its fortunes. However, given current economic trends (ie. severe recession to depression in most countries), the PS3 is more or less assured to come out of next year looking sorry. It could easily track on par with the 360 as a best case scenario, so let's say 7 to 9 million, leaving it with about 27 to 29 million.
The Wii is actually the easiest to predict this time around, since market saturation is a pipe dream; it's still selling as though it's the system's launch year, 2 years out. All one really has to do is look at the past production hikes, carry the numbers, and do a bit of simple math to get the results. Which gives a staggering 33.6 million units next year as the most likely figure, sum total around 78.6 million. I realize that sounds crazy after those lowball figures above for 360 and PS3, but this is not actually that shocking. The same thing happened with the GameCube, original XBOX, and PlayStation 2 around 2003. The GC and XB dropped off, while the PS2 kept sales up nice and high.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
