Lifespan of the Wii?

[Erik Aston]

Well, his predictions are no more ridiculous than your own, really. ;>

This gen is unpredictable, really anything could happen.  360 could suddenly take off this Xmas and never look back.  Wii could keep selling out for the next 2 years and generate unheard of sales.  PS3 could keep slowly building steam until suddenly everyone wakes up and realizes it sold 100M again.

The videogame market is entirely predictable, and there is nothing ridiculous about my predictions.

Usually videogames sell 1/2 of their yearly sales in the Xmas quarter. Given that sales went from 3.2 million to 6.5 million in 3 months, we can see that sales are at about 1.1 million/month WW right now. That means 9.9 million through September, and another 9.9 from Oct-Dec, for 19.8 million for 2007, and 23 million total. (I'm calculating base levels of demand, not saying Nintendo can or will produce that many units). Given the near-complete sell-outs, I'll estimate demand is at least 10% beyond that, and can say with total conviction that demand is there to sell well over 25 million units by the end of this year. Assuming that more games, that hit more audiences, with decreasing prices, increases the demand for the console, and seeing clearly that there isn't demand to do even 10 million units a year of either 360 or PS3 (meaning Wii will quickly have no competition), I can say with total conviction that all Nintendo needs to do is follow through on their promise of continually providing audience-expanding software to make Wii the best-selling home console of all time. Think I'm nuts? Wait. And. See.

There's 2 other consoles that launched just like Wii, with a pack-in the calibur of Wii Sports. One was the NES, with Super Mario Bros. (US release). The other was Game Boy, with Tetris. Both of those systems were outdated the first day they hit shelves. Both creamed multiple generations of competition.