Reasonable said:
Actually, with only 3 consoles I'd say it shouldn't be too hard. Retail's my field, and you're calculating correlations across hundreds of products to find demand patterns and which products cannabilize which and by how much. Personally I'd say its pretty likely, even without performing any analysis, that the Wii affects the PS3 more than the 360. The clearest indication was the Source's own review of 100 weeks of performance - what you can see is an almost perfect correlation between the Sony marketshare loss (from PS2 to Ps3) to Nintendo gain (from Gamecube to Wii) while the 360 showed a modest upward trend perfectly in line with Xbox previous growth. In short, Sony and Nintendo have swapped places while MS have been slowly growing their own share almost seperately. I know there is a lot of talk about Wii bringing in new gamers/demographics, and to an extent this is true, but I actually think, particularly in US and UK, that the 360 has actually brought in more new console gamers - specifically, I believe it's usurped the PC for gamers who would previously have turned to that platform for FPS, online MP, Clans and a strong sense of community. The Wii in many ways is the new PS2 (although I think it's failing to gain the traction PS2 did with third part) while the 360 is simply continuing a trend started by MS, who are only relatively recently making moves to expand the console to more casual purchasers. The PS3 I believe confused consumers initially (perhaps still) with its huge leap in spec, price and the inclusion of BR, etc. The result was it made it relatively easy for the Wii to steal the more casual market, particularly with the strong interest in Wii Sports and motion control and the more mass market price, while it started out very weak for online, etc. to effectively compete with the 360, particulary as the 360 had already been out for a year and got Halo 3 and Gears out to gather the online faithful. My personal view is Sony were so sure that Nintendo wasn't a threat, they went full out after the 360, looking to equal or top it on specs, play catch up online with Live, and rely on the massive Playstation brand and install base to deliver an easy victory where they quickly edged MS out of the game by replacing them as the console for FPS, online, etc. while at the same time hoovering up the mass market, relegating the Wii as a niche console for the Nintendo faithful, much as they had with the Gamecube. Of course, things didn't quite work out like that...
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But you're talking about a different subject now.
The OP analysis is about trends and competition within this generation, and he's drawing conclusions that IMO can't be drawn.
Your post is about comparisons between generations, and that's something else and nothing I disagree with at all, because the Wii clearly has stolen gamers from Sony - lots of PS2 owners in last gen are choosing Wii in this gen.
