You guys are kind of missing the point here...total sw for Wii / PS3 / X360 is at just about peak level - even if PS3 might not quite be at its peak for SW or HW. Natal and Move will need tens of millions of users buying multiple games to have any kind of reversal in the coming/current software declines. The PS3 base is already buying dramatically fewer games per year as compared to its peak, as is the Wii base. We're past a point where hw shipments can mask that much (if any) longer.
X360 has been consistently declining for a year worldwide if you go by shipments - I don't see Natal being able to reverse that this Christmas by itself. So in terms of a later peak - I don't think it is happening - by the time Move / Natal may catch on or have completely flopped Wii 2 will be out. Even if Natal turned X360 into a DS-like goliath somehow, it would take three years for the motion base to reach Wii levels for instance. That in turn would probably harm Wii - so what I'm saying is SW between the three machines has peaked or is at least plateauing.
Beyond that, I'm just not a big believer in Natal or Move. For instance, if Sony and Microsoft spend half a billion dollars saying motion controls are awesome...whats to stop a prospective customer from buying a Wii? I mean, in 2006-late 2007 my impression was PS2 was kind of a cheap substitute for Wii - in 2010-2011 at least Wii should remain the cheaper substitute for PS3 + Move / X360 + Natal
In the history of video games, nothing has ever reversed software purchasing rates by the base - Natal and Move probably won't be any different. They are designed mainly to prevent Wii from reaching PS2 software totals with a long tail as that would amount to Nintendo selling ~500m of its own games ($20 billion!) out of the 1.5b games shipped. With Natal / Move, Wii will probably only get to 125m or so and say 1.1b-1.3b games which leaves something like ~600m - 900m units of sw for third parties, instead of 1b+.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
