2007 is now settled - will 2008 be any different?

[albionus]

If I'm not mistaken Nintendo is producing around 2.4-2.6 million DS' so I would expect sales in the high 26-30 million ranged. The Wii is being produced at 1.8 million a month which I would expect to be increased at least some. There is no reason to not anticipate Nintendo will sell all of the Wiis they produce so I would say sales should be in the 23-25 million range. No real need to analyze either of them since as Shams has noted they aren't as interesting as the PS360 battle.

I think the 360 is the harder of the 2 to predict since MS doesn't have its hands tied to the degree Sony does. If MS plays conservative and tries to earn a full year profit next year (ie no price cuts, no major payouts for exclusives, fewer bundles and such) then I would expect the 360 to sell about what it did this year with more of its sales coming from NA as the PS3 kills it in JP and EU. Should MS decide to be more aggressive then it could easily see a decent sales bump though still no where near the Wii. That would give a range of 9-13 million for the 360.

At this point Sony is at the mercy of MS and Konami's accountants. If MS says "screw the losses full steam ahead" there isn't much Sony can do to respond. The price to buy a 2008 exclusive for MS has to have dropped considerably compared with 2007. Similarly Kojima must be getting lonelier and lonelier over at Konami. They've got to be burning him in effigy over in the Konami accounting department. Worst case scenario, Konami wises up and MS goes for the jugular then PS3 sales fall to 6 million without a smaller share from NA. Best case scenario, the accountants at MS win while the ones at Konami lose, sales will increase reasonably to 10million.

The PSP, ehh, who cares. We're talking about video game systems here.

In easier to read chart form:
DS- 26-30 m/90-94 m
Wii- 23-25 m/42-44 m
360- 9-13 m/25-28m
PS3- 6-10m/15-18m

Note though I think the sales of the PS3+360 will be 19 million. I don't think we'll see the 360 sell 13 million and the PS3 10 million.