What is the lowest realistic expectation for lifetime sales of Wii,PS3,360?

[davygee]

Rath said:

You make severa assumptions here which I think are wrong. First is the idea that developers intrinsically want to develop on the "Next Gen" (PS3, 360) consoles (I also think calling them next gen and the Wii last gen is about as wrong as you can get as they are both current gen, ie. Generation the Seventh) however I see no reason why this would be so. Developing games is a very marginal business and good sales are neccesary to stay alive and sometimes even that isnt enough (I believe Take 2 is struggling despite the fact that they have had some huge hits?). The larger userbase of the Wii holds far more attraction for developers than the power of the PS3, this is only reinforced by the cost of developing games on the PS3. The reason that people develop for 360/PS3 is because that userbase is larger than the Wiis userbase and as such currently makes sense if you wish to develop a multi plat game. Exclusives however will, in my opinion, mainly either be on the Wii or be bought exclusives. There will be notable exceptions from developers such as Epic who are graphics whores =P (and brilliant at it too).

The reason for porting to the PS3 from the 360 is because your increasing the userbase at a low cost, not because developers have a mysterious loyalty to the PS3 =

Firstly, although the Wii is part of the 7th generation you say.  Technically (taking the Wiiremote thingy aside), it is as powerful as a 6th generation system.  And we have yet to see anything on the system that betters games from last gen.  So technically, developers are working in a similar environment to what they have been doing since 2000.  But developers building on proper next gen platforms (360 & PS3) will need to get used to creating higher resolution textures, streaming and all sorts as well as better audio.

What I can stating is that if developer X decides not to make any games for the 360 and PS3 and solelybuilds games for the Wii until the end of it's lifespan, then they are gaining no experience in a truely HD Next Generation development environment.  And in 5/6 years time, when the next generation of gaming consoles comes around, we will all working in HD environments apart from developer X...so then they have an integration period to work out how to do things.

This is why I expect most developers will develop a "suck it and see" mentality towards truely Next Generation gaming and will dabble at some stage or not.