Lifespan of the Wii?

[Erik Aston]

NorthStar said:Um..at the end there you brought up the NES and the Game Boy?Those consoles had ABSOLUTELY no competition when they released.

Creating or recreating a dead market is its own challenge. Regardless, both NES and GB faced competition later in their cycles. I ask you this: is it more likely for an unproven new console  or a disproven old system to make headway against a dominant console later in the cycle? And of course the comparison there was merely Wii Sports to Tetris and Super Mario Bros., which I think is fair.

The other problem is you console sales estimates do not consider that the Wii is very affordable to all people right now.There will be Price cuts for all 3 systems but the Wii is already viewed as very affordable so i am not sure if a price cut will increase numbers of systems sold.The PS3 will probly gain the most from a price cut....People will have a Bargain system at the Wii level and a "cutting edge system"with the PS3.I do think this generation will last a bit longer than last gen did....

We already have a "bargain" system and two "cutting edge" systems, and we can see which is selling better. PS3 and to a lesser extent 360 will never be able to compete with Nintendo price-wise, and this is in no way an advantage for them no matter how you spin it. Sony should have just released PS3 for 1000 bucks, then they could cut the price even more, right? All the people "waiting for the price to come down" will not jump on board when it does if Wii is already dominant and has all the games.

Microsoft may have to jump the gun this time too though but I think the PS3 will be able to last 7 years to Microsofts 360's 4 or 5  and maybe both nintendo and microsoft launch a new system then but the PS3 will be far from outdated they will already be running in HD format the games will look amazing still.

Wii is outdated today, while 360 and PS3 look amazing, and we can see which is selling better. As I said, people are not going to go "I want Wii Health Pack, but it looks like crap at 480p. I think I'll get a PS3 for MGS4 instead."

and I think with the evelution of the Eye toy for the PS3 it will have Motion sensing with your whole body it should be able to detect depth so gameplay inovations will be there.but in no way do I see the Wii staying for 10-12 years tech wise as it is games that come out for the Wii that are not fully Wii remote functional will continue to see release on the PS2 as well so If the Wii lasts 10 years and the games are not all Wii remote revolving games how long would that keep the PS2 around (if I was Sony I would be hittin Nintendo with Multi colored editions of the PS2 It works for Nintendo I really think that several diferent colors of the PS2 with the eye toy would get some casual people buying PS2's $ they could have spent on the Wii)Use the PS2 to compete with Wii and Isolate next gen competition to the 360

One could also argue that with all the remaining major PS2 games coming out for Wii, which unlike PS2 has many killer apps for 2007, that the PS2-to-Wii ports will hurt PS2. In general, what you're saying is right, in that Sony SHOULD HAVE used PS2 to attack Wii, but they're pretty committed to next-gen at this point. I think Sony could have stuck with PS2 as their main console for another 3 years, releasing motion-controlled games and "edu-tainment" software alongside continued releases of key franchises like Ratchet, God of War and EyeToy. They totally had the ability to take on next-gen with PS2 had they wanted to. In terms of lasting for 10 years... Consider that the last reporting period that PSone outshipped GCN was in September of 2003.