Sales of the "Big Three" over next 3 Years - Your opinion

[davygee]

HappySqurriel said:

I think a 'good userbase' is relative to the other systems on the market; the Gamecube at 20 Million had developers abandon it because the PS2 was pushing 80 Million and the XBox was giving incentives to develop for its 10+ Million North American userbase.

If the N64, Gamecube and Dremacst taught us anything it would be that, regardless of how strong your first party development is, third party support is the key to a large userbase; Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda OoT, Goldeneye, Mario Kart, Banjo Kazooie, Super Smash Bros, Mario Party, Donkey Kong, Starfox, 1080 snowboarding and Perfect Dark were all smash successes on the N64 but didn't provide enough force to push the system to the next level (in terms of sales). Not to be rude but the only series Sony has which could match the sales of many of Nintendo's series on a userbase as small as the Gamecube or N64 would be Gran Turismmo; Jak, Ratchet and Clank, and Socom gained a lot of sales because of the popularity of the PS2 more than anything else.

I know that and agree with that...I think that 3rd parties will produce a good number of good games for both the 360 and PS3, but the exclusives will get thinner on the ground (unless there is a big cheque involved).  You cannot rely on 1st party to save a system...but it will help.  The Gamecube came onto the market too late IMHO.  The Dreamcast got shutout from EA and that effectively killed it.

Personally I just don't see an out and out total winner this generation by such a huge margin.  That's why I reckon all three platforms will have a decent existence on a whole.