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TheSource said:

My gamer gut tells me Sony won't sell that many consoles.

But they are going to sell 125 million PS2's. Can they really lose more than 50% of their sales (60 million pieces of hardware) just because they launched at $600? SNES to N64 was a drop of 17 million units, N64 to GC was a drop of 10 million units. Sony doesn't have the 1st party content to cushion their fall, but they have enough not to lose more than 60 million customers..don't they? I think so.

As a percentage, Nintendo lost 33% of it's market from SNES to N64. If Sony lost that many PS2 owners, they are down into the 80 millions...still ahead of what I think Wii can do. But, I think Sony obtained less loyal followers..and can lose a lot more than 1/3 of their PS2 customers...somewhere between 2/5 and 3/5 of their base will likely go to Nintendo and Microsoft. Even if 60% abandon Sony though, that is still 50 million PS2 customers, and then add whatever they can get from former GC, XBOX owners.

I picked 66 million because I basically can't see them losing more than 60% of their customers, yet I can't see them selling more than 20 million in any territory besides America...its a compromise.

If you asked me for ranges I'd go:

Wii - 60-90 million

PS3 - 40-75 million (This assumes 50 to 85 million customers abandon PS2.. hard to predict)

360 - 45-65 million


 Keep in mind, both "16 bit=>32/64" bit and "32/64 bit=>last gen" transitions saw major increases in total market.  Your figures, assuming the high number for all three consoles, still only sees worldwide growth of about 30%.  Assuming all the low numbers, the industry will have shrunk significantly.  It looks like Nintendo didn't lose that many customers, but where they really lost was in market expansion, where Sony (and later Microsoft) were more able to capitolize.  The market went from 80 million units to 140 million units, to 175 (numbers taken from Wikipedia).  I'm too tired to figure out how this affects things right now, but it probably will.

Gah, I needs da sleeps.