The following is my analysis based on current trends and how things panned out last gen, which was pretty much similar to the gen before that and the gen before that .... and so on.
NOTES:
Yearly mapping is not exact, it is approximate to make it easier for me to get totals. So, "2nd Nov to 1st Nov" means 2nd week of November of XXXX year to 1st week of November the following year.
| year | 1st | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
TOTAL | GAP | MS% | Yearly Mapping |
| wii | 13.8 | 21.9 | 24 | 21 | 19 | 15 | 13 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 152.7 | 104.1 | 62% |
3nd Nov to 2nd Nov |
| x360 | 5.3 | 7.7 | 9.6 | 10 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 49.6 | 5.8 | 20% |
3rd Nov to 2nd Nov |
| ps3 | 5 | 10.8 | 11 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 43.8 | NA | 18% |
4th Oct to 1st Oct |
| year | 1st | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
TOTAL | GAP |
MS% | Yearly Mapping |
| ps2 | 6.7 | 16.9 | 21.1 | 18.6 | 16 | 16.3 | 11.8 | 9.6 | 7 | 3 | 127 | 102.8 | 74% | 3rd Feb to 2nd Feb |
| xbox | 4.3 | 5.5 | 6.1 | 6.2 | 2 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 24.2 | 2.7 | 14% |
2nd Sep to 1st Sep |
| ngc | 4.6 | 4.6 | 6.1 | 3.4 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21.5 | NA | 12% |
2nd Sep to 1st Sep |
Color Key |
||||||||||||||
| Actual Sales | ||||||||||||||
| Predicted Sales | ||||||||||||||
| LAUNCH of X360 | ||||||||||||||
| LAUNCH of PS3/Wii | ||||||||||||||
| LAUNCH of neXtbox & possibly PS4 (WiiHD a year to year and a half later) |
We can see a couple of things from last gen that are pretty important indicators of what will happen. By the 3rd year the 3rd place console will start to die off. It is inevitable and has happened in every generation. Thus, PS3's 4th year (as there is no realistic possible way it will catch 360 this year) it will start to fall off quickly.
Also, note that when the "next gen" starts the losing consoles take a much bigger drop than the leader. PS2 actually sold more that year than in the previous year when 360 launched. However, GC and xbox dropped by more than 50% each.
Finally, we note that the leader dropped significantly when the next gen was in full swing and then continued to steadily decline for the remainder of its life. I arbitrarily stopped at 10 years even though history has proven the leaders continue to sell after that.
With that taken into account I projected the remaining years of this gen's cycle. I have the neXtBox and possibly PS4 coming out fall of 2011 and WiiHD and possibly PS4 coming a year or so later. By that time the losers of this gen will have stopped all production as has happened in every generation before.
One item of interest is it is obvious that if 360 did not have that year head start, it would not be in 2nd place and probably would not have been able to steal many or any of the exclusives it did throughout the last year.
