Wii at 35 million worldwide XBOX 360 at 29 million Jan 1st 2009

[Dodece]

I think we have a few myths playing around this thread.

The sales of the 360 for the past month and a half cannot be totally attributed to Halo 3. Were it only about Halo 3 the console would be under a hundred thousand now. Halo 3 might have been the break out title, but the console is moving itself now. They have hit a consistent sales base, and its illogical to call it a spike being that it is a horizontal line. Hell last week 360 sales went up. We are on a plateau folks. Not on top of a mountain looking down.

I think the expectation that any console will sell over three million units world wide a month during the lean months is excessively optimistic. The Wii is not as supply constrained as it was earlier in the year, and it is much easier to get them. Yet the sales stay remarkably stable. I just do not see a console exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand units per market per week consistently. That would be unprecedented by this years numbers. Keep the predictions realistic.

We do need to consider the effect of the PS3, or more specifically what effect the flopping of that console might have. Now if the PS3 does better those are sales lost to Microsoft in the other markets, and sales lost for the Wii in Japan. However if the console flops hard through the holidays and next year. Microsoft will gain more sales from hardcore gamers, and many core gamers. Anyway we cannot ignore the third player in the war.

Anyway I think we have a lot of lose reasoning in this thread. The Wii is not going to sell sixty million units through the end of next year. The 360 is probably going to do better then the low ball estimates thanks to having titles like GTA, and the fact that the console has reached a new base rate speaks to increasing demand rather then a decreasing demand. I think the Wii will still win, but not be some obscene margin. Perhaps six or seven million. I think it will take a double digit lead in the following year as long as consumers stay in love, and thats firmly in Nintendo's court. In other words as long as they do not get full of themselves of make too many bad calls.