The way I look at it is the period of rapid growth is over, but that doesn't mean Nintendo platforms are going to go back to doing ~80m-130m a year as they did from 1997 to 2004, and it doesn't mean Wii and DS are going to collapse.
Wii at a minimum should have two more fiscal years where hardware shipments are over 20m, and if Wii goes up this year its probably three, maybe four more years at over 20m. DS probably has three more fiscal years at over 20m.
The trick is software - so long as total number of Wii/DS owners in a fiscal year buy 1-5 games a year the figures will remain massive.
At 100m DS, and 193m DS games shipped in the year ending March 2009, the average DS owner is still buying two games. If that rate drops to 1.2 or games in the next fiscal year, it will be offset by the ~128m or whatever DS out there which would mean another 150m+ games sold.
Wii is the one to watch, because it may be that at 80m people buy three games or they buy two games. Its a huge difference and I think its the real determining factor for when the next Nintendo releases.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
