Each Console's best year

[TheSource]

Japan never splits anywhere near as evenly as other markets do. I think Wii has just about wrapped up Japan. PS1 outsold Saturn/N64 4:1 in Japan

 PS1 outsold N64 less than 2:1 in America (15 million units more or so) SNES outsold Genesis over 4:1 in Japan.. SNES outsold Genesis by only 5/6 million in the USA

PS2 outsold GC by over 5:1 in Japan PS2 will probably end up outselling Xbox 3:1, and GC 4:1 in the USA While Xbox sold roughly 1.5:1 to GC in the USA

Basically, Japan has never been like the USA market, which can support 2 moderately successful consoles and a dominant one (PS2-Xbox-GC, PS1-N64-DC & Sat combined for the timing) , or three 20-35 million selling consoles. Japan came closest to parity in the 1995-1997 when N64 numbers, PS1 numbers, and Saturn numbers were all decent to strong. But Saturn stunk everywhere else so it died off. Even though it was supported longer N64 never caught the Saturn in Japan. Usually it is between a 60-30-10 split and a 75-15-10 in Japan, with the positioning locked up early on. I have Wii with like 74%, PS3 at 22%, and 360 at 4%, suggesting Nintendo will have the dominant console, but that PS3 will be stronger than usual for a second place system in Japan.

Happy one of the reasons I think PS3 will sell well later is because of the relative late launch in Europe. The console will only have wasted two holidays (07'-08') in Europe at the expensive price, instead of the 3 (06' to 08') wasted in the USA and Japan. So it should be able to attain it's best sales Europe. Another factor is that the Sony brand in Europe is comparably strong to Nintendo's brand in America after SNES I think, especially since Nintendo was never as firmly established in Europe as in the USA and Japan. From SNES to N64 Nintendo hardly lost any American users (3 million), and I expect the PS2-PS3 transition in Europe to be the same way, even as Japan goes to Nintendo, and the USA stays as a 40% plurality/win for the 360.