I have been thinking a bit about John's 240million Wii consoles thread and realized that yes he could in fact be very close to the final number and I'll give some reason's to back him up on it.
1. The Wii will be the first console during it's 5 year stint to drop way below 100$ making it a true mass market product. (I expect Nintendo is aiming for a 50$ console and not the 99$ console people expect them to be after).
2. The Wii will have the largest game library of any console ever released. The VC and Wiiware guarantee this.
3. The device is marketed completely different then any other console before it. Nintendo hasn't targeted kids... it's targeting everyone.
4. Nintendo will enter India and China at the right time with the right price. In the past Nintendo was always scared of hitting these markets due to piracy. This time they have the governments on side with them to stop some of the pirate problems. Both are emerging power houses and to reap the benefits of their power they need to squash things like software piracy.
5. Both Sony and Microsoft will be weakened due to continuing losses in their games divisions. Nintendo warned everyone that they saw a market crash coming, they were talking about their competitors market's crashing specifically. We heard this from Nintendo for at least 2 years.
6. Old companies die, new ones emerge. We're going to see a lot of this happen this gen. Companies like Silicon Knights have their days numbered for them. They pulled a Majesco and instead of going the casual games route they are trying to bankrupt another company to pay for their own. This never ends pretty.
Old powerhouses like Square and Rockstar will rely on old franchises to keep their boats steady for investors. This will in fact lower their total marketshare. They need to make more games for different genres to soften any blows from possible market implosion. We're swamped with GTA rip offs and FF clones... Nobody makes Shoot em ups to the same avail as they use to. That market was overdone as well...
This directly relates to the original post. The Wii may hit some rough spots during it's lifespan but for the reasons I stated, the problems won't last long. Third parties will either have to innovate or they'll be pushed out of the market. If they stick to their old ways of doing things, they'll definately see a decrease in sales for their software. A new FF game for the Wii with a 120million install base won't guarantee anymore sales of the new FF then it did on the PS2... going by the trends we can easily see with software like Zelda, every new game in the franchise will sell a bit less then the last (once the franchise reaches it's peak in sales, the only way to go is down, unless you can figure out a way to attract new players). It's better for the Wii to get new game franchises then it is to get a lot of slowing older franchises as new franchises can offer the system new players. Of course old franchises also bring the dedicated players into your realm so of course you still want them as well. Just don't bank on them as much as you use to.
Prepare for termination! It is the only logical thing to do, for I am only loyal to Megatron.
