UNITY - Nintendo & Wii U Finish The REVOLUTION

[johnlucas]

zorg1000 said:

Well that was an odd rant but ur wrong. I did see 3DS making a great comeback and I did think Wii was going to sell better than PS3/360 back at E3 2006. I also expect Wii U to have a very strong and healthy life but 240m is just not happening.

"A great comeback" "To sell better" But what does that mean?
HOW great? HOW much better?
What number can you put to those vague terms?

When the PS2 came out did you think it would sell great?
If you did, did you see the PS2 selling 155 million great?

The Earth's population is 7 billion & growing.
Parts are Earth are bound by extreme poverty & war-torn environments so you can't count them as a potential audience for consoles.
But the potential videogame audience is MUCH bigger than 155 million.
That potential is so open ended that there will be room for growth for a long long time (we're nowhere near even 1 billion much less 7 billion).

Let's go through the entire history of the console generations to see the number of the console gaming audience (arcades harder to quantify).
Only major players sales listed (handhelds & home consoles).

1st Generation
Home Consoles
Magnavox Odyssey (1972) - 330 thousand
Atari PONG (1975) - 150 thousand
Coleco Telstar (1976) - 1 million
Nintendo Color TV Game (1977) - 3 million

TOTAL Audience - 4.48 million

2nd Generation
Home Consoles
Fairchild Channel F (1976) - 250 thousand
Atari Video Computer System/2600 (1977) - 30 million
Magnavox Odyssey² (1978) - 2 million
Mattel Intellivision (1980) - 3 million
Atari 5200 (1982) - 1 million
Colecovision (1982) - 2 million
Milton Bradley Vectrex (1982) -unknown but very little

Handheld Consoles
Mattel Electronics [Auto Race, Football] (1977) - unknown but much
Milton Bradley Microvision (1979) - unknown but not much
Nintendo Game & Watch (1980) - 43.4 million

TOTAL Audience - over 81.65 million

3rd Generation
Home Consoles
Nintendo Family Computer/Nintendo Entertainment System (1983) - 61.91 million
Sega SG-1000 (1983) - unknown but low
Sega Mark III/Master System (1985) - 11.8 million
Atari 7800 (1986) - 3.77 million

Handheld Consoles
Nintendo Game & Watch (1980) - 43.4 million

TOTAL Audience - 120.88 million

4th Generation
Home Consoles
NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 (1987) - 10 million
Sega Mega Drive/Genesis (1988) - 40 million
Nintendo Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990) - 49.10 million
SNK NeoGeo Advanced Entertainment System (1991) - 1 million

Handheld Consoles
Nintendo Game Boy (1989) - 118.69 million
Atari Lynx (1989) - 500 thousand
Sega Game Gear (1990) - 15 million
NEC PC Engine GT (Game Tank)/Turbo Express (1990) - 1.5 million

TOTAL Audience -235.79 million

5th Generation
Home Consoles
3DO (1993) - 2 million
Atari Jaguar (1993) - 250 thousand
Sega Saturn (1994) - 9.4 million
Sony PlayStation (1994) - 102.49 million
Nintendo 64 (1996) - 32.93 million

Handheld Consoles
Sega Nomad (1995) - 1 million
Nintendo Virtual Boy (1995) - 770 thousand
Tiger Electronics game.com (1997) - 300 thousand
Nintendo Game Boy Color (1998) - 118.69 million (with original Game Boy)
SNK NeoGeo Pocket (1998) - 2 million
Bandai Wonderswan (1999) - 1 million

TOTAL Audience -270.83 million

6th Generation
Home Consoles
Sega Dreamcast (1998) - 10.6 million
Sony PlayStation 2 (2000) - 155 million
Nintendo Gamecube (2001) - 22 million
Microsoft XBox (2001) -24 million

Handheld Consoles
Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2001) - 81.51 million
Nokia N-Gage (2003) - 3 million
Tapwave Zodiac (2003) - 200 thousand

TOTAL Audience -296.31 million

7th Generation
Home Consoles
Microsoft XBox 360 (2005) - currently 78.7 million—according to VGChartz
Sony PlayStation 3 (2006) - currently 80.1 million—according to VGChartz
Nintendo Wii (2006) - currently 100.04 million—according to VGChartz

Handheld Consoles
Nintendo DS (2004) - currently 153.93 million
Sony PlayStation Portable (2005) - 76.3 million

TOTAL Audience - 489.07 million so far

8th Generation
Home Consoles
Nintendo Wii U (2012) - currently 3.74 million—according to VGChartz
Sony PlayStation 4 (2013) - To Be Determined
Microsoft XBox One (2013) - To Be Determined

Handheld Consoles
Nintendo 3DS (2011) - currently 35.5 million—according to VGChartz
Sony PlayStation Vita (2012) -currently 5.9 million—according to VGChartz

TOTAL Audience - 39.24 million so far

So the highest we got is a number slightly under 500 million.
500 million is only 1/14 of 7 billion.
Do you think the console audience can never go any further than 500 million all platforms combined?
Why wouldn't you? You saw it go far beyond its 4.5 million in the 1st generation.
You saw it go far beyond its 82 million in the 2nd generation.
You saw it go far beyond its 121 million in the 3rd generation.
How did it span the entire range of 200-300 million in the 4th, 5th, & 6th gens only to reach nearly 500 million in the 7th gen?

There are more people out there that can be potential console players.
And it is possible for one console to double the efforts of the top consoles of the past eras.
I spelled it out on the charts for you right here.

Atari 2600 took those handfuls of thousands & millions of the 1st gen consoles & sold 30 million.
The NES took Atari's 30 million & got to nearly 62 million.
The PS1 took NES's 62 million & got 102 million.
The PS2 took PS1's 102 million & got 155 million.

Why can't Wii U take PS2's 155 million & go further with it?
Wii was on track to do this before Nintendo withdrew the console support so why can't Wii U which will have more selling potential than Wii did?
Lots of people in the world just waiting to be console gamers.
All you have to do is make the right proposition.
Look at how much both Wii & DS expanded the gaming audience in the 7th gen.

Saturation point has not been reached yet.
There's plenty of room for growth.
I can see this potential & I will speak on it despite how unbelievable it may seem to others.

Look beyond the paper stats, zorg1000. Look beyond "the reasonable".
You can't reason with a phenomenon.
All you can do is just stand in awe.

Wii U is a phenomenon in the making.
John Lucas