What are your 'John Lucas' predictions for the new year?

[Erik Aston]

You certainly understand the market, John, and I certainly give you more credit than those who ignore obvious trends, but your predictions rarely do you any favors.

Here we go...

*Wii will see 60 million sold worldwide by the end of 2008.

If Nintendo can ramp production up fast enough, the demand is there. But I doubt they can produce 40 million in one year... yet. 30 million I think they probably can, this year.

*Wii Fit's opening week will outsell Halo 3 opening week worldwide when tallied together (still waiting on this to redeem my failed Japan stipulation).

This prediction I really hate because it's one that seems not to understand the market (along with not understanding how much Nintendo can or will produce).

Shooters are a saturated genre filled with constant one-upmanship. Microsoft needs to hype launches like Halo and Gears of War to maximize software sales, because if they rely on a long tail for the bulk of sales, better shooters will inevitably come along and eat up their potential sales.

After a mega launch like this, public perception around the product can take a hit. It feels like a flash-in-the-pan, "over-hyped;" some non-fans get swept up in the hype and turn into bad WOM; if something perceived as a better product comes along quickly, like CoD4, it can damage the brand; and the tail of the product will be more influenced by seasonal trends, thus MS pushing Halo 3 into September to capitalize on Xmas more.

A game like Brain Age, Nintendogs, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports or Wii Fit is looking to build up a new genre from scratch. They have no built in audience, expectations, and the public likely doesn't even understand the product yet. These games need slower roll-outs to find their audience.

Satoru Iwata said something about how no one would believe Nintendo's expectations for Wii Fit if they announced them, just like no one would believe they expected 20 million sales from the Brain Age brand in 2005. Companies pushing for a mega launch talk about "the biggest entertainment debut ever." Nintendo never pushes for the debut, they want the games that will still be selling millions of copies years later, and trying to forcefeed the public something they don't yet understand is not the way to do that.

*Resident Evil 5 will see itself on the Wii.

*Metal Gear Solid 4 will NOT go to the PS3 (a prediction possibly seen as my craziest ever even past my Wii Fit one).

See, I agree that Wii will see more and more top support, and PS3 will see less and less, but predicting specifics like this is no good, unless you have sources at Capcom or Konami.

One thing that will happen is that games that should have been major 5 million + sellers will fail to sell that much on PS3, while games no one would expect to be major hits sell 5 million + on Wii. Another thing that will happen is smaller third parties will thrive with smaller, innovative 500K-1M sellers moreso than on PS2. We've seen that already with DS and Wii with games like Trauma Center and Prof. Layton. The change won't all come through OMG moments like Monster Hunter being cancelled for PS3 and brought to Wii.

*XBox 360 will increase aggressiveness (by EVERY means necessary: price drops, money lures, market hype, etc.) towards PS3 to fight for an overall #2 position in the marketplace (this continues one of my oldest visions about 360's aggressiveness to PS3 to fight against being an outsider in the gamesmarket).

I agree here. Ironically for MS, this aggressiveness, which goes along with the debut hype mentality mentioned above, will make it difficult for them to generate the perpetual spontaneous hype that always fuels the top systems. The great software lineup this winter did a lot more to create good will toward and sales for 360 than did MS's aggressive warrenties, price cuts, pack-ins and hype.

*Wii's 2008 will make Wii's 2006/2007 look like child's play (get ready for insane production & sales numbers).

I agree here too. 2009 will beat 2008, as well.

*Related to last point: Nintendo's market dominance and sister sector cooperation (handheld and home consoles) which I call the WiiDS Phenomenon will also begin showing itself in 2008. Nintendo will certainly become not only a plurality of the market (not just the 45% discussed in this thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=13301) but a MAJORITY of the market (over 50%). Eventually a vast majority (think in the ranges of 67%, 75% to see a Pac-Man on the pie chart) as the years roll on.

I can see 60% for Wii in the middle-term, and yes, maybe even more than 75% when all is said and done. There is always a dominant system with at least 60% marketshare, no matter how much some folks believe in the mythical "three way tie."