PS3, unless it does something crazy in Oct NPD and sells like 400k (not likely - the price drop comes the day after NPD's October period ends), will end up with sales nearly identical (although slightly higher) to Dreamcast over months 1-12. GC and Xbox look like they had a ~25% more and a ~60% more sales in their first 12 months (respectively) than PS3 will (again unless it sells something crazy like 400k in Oct - I'm assuming it will do 90k to 120k in the USA NPD report for October).
Established console brands tend to see 10-20% (i.e. NES, PS1, Xbox are exceptions) of their lifetime sales by the end of month 12 in the USA. So if PS3 is at ~1.95/2.0 million by the end of month 12 in the USA (NPD) then its looking unlikely to be outside the 10-20 million range (just like GC, Xbox, N64). I have it pegged at 18 million lifetime in the USA, but we'll have to wait and see!.
If Wii has already seen 20% of it's sales in the USA by month 12, that would still indicate is will do roughly 25 million units - just in the USA - which I think would put the numbers between NES sales and SNES sales.
BUT - if it's only 10% of sales by month 12 - which is close to what it is going to end up for PS2 - Wii could end up closer to 50 million. I'd guess neither is true...and Wii will end up around 38 million in the USA.
360 is in between , and should end up around 18 million as a worst case scenario at this point in the USA. I think 28 million or so is more realistic.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
