I generally agree with this (the thread). If the Wii does really well, it brings a lot more people into the industry (people who never played games before), and they become potential customers for other systems.
Note - gaming has *never* been mainstream. Even the 100m + PS1/PS2 units... many are bought to replace each other, many are bought as presents, etc. A real indicator is how many PEOPLE actively play games on an average day. Compared to watching TV (or a movie), listening to music... or even browsing the web - gaming covers just a fraction.
This is much of the theory behind the "mobile" games industry - it is a serious push to make games more mainstream, as *everyone* will eventually be carrying around a device capable of playing games everyday (talking several BILLION people/devices - not 1-2% of that).
From this point of view, the Wii will definitely help (and more so than either the 360 or PS3 could).
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