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happydolphin said:

Here, phenom, just for fun :

When Nintendo wins, it's close, and its thanks to the casual audience. Most core regret their purchase and will be reluctant to make it again unless WiiU is compelling. That's a good portion of that 97M.

PosPlatformNorth AmericaEuropeJapanRest of WorldGlobal
1 PlayStation 2 (PS2) 53.65 53.28 23.18 23.57 153.68
14 Xbox (XB) 15.77 7.17 0.53 1.18 24.65
15 GameCube (GC) 12.55 4.44 4.04 0.71 21.74
When Sony wins, it's a no-contest, and its thanks to catering to all audiences and thanks to aggressive marketing. People were ready to give them money again (even at exorbitant rates), and are ready to do it again.
So, when Nintendo gets less fortunate, things will go down. For Sony, it can really only go up.

Hey man, I would tweak one thing you wrote above.

Nintendo won the numbers game this generation because it appealed to the largest amount of people.

Sony won the previous two generations because it appealed to the largest amount of people.

I don't think it's fair to say the Wii won because of casual players, and the PS2 won because of "all audiences." The casual market (and again I really don't like that terminology) is the biggest market. They are the people who buy the majority of video game consoles. So if PS2 won it's because a lot of people who are casually interested in video games bought it. It's the same reason the Wii won.

People like you and me are the minority in this equation. For every devoted video game fan on this site, there are 20 people who are only marginally interested in video games. They maybe buy a single system per generation and play only a handful of games. Those are the people who made the PS2 a huge success, and they are the same people who made the Wii a success.