The lifecycle of a console and differences to the sales of the Wii compared to PS2

[taxman]

I was reading the thread in the Nintendo section about the lack of good 3rd party support for the Wii as well as the fact that casual gamers only buy 2-3 games per year as opposed to hardcore that buy 1-2 per month. This gave me the following realisation about the system sales.

 The PS2 had a very slow start to its sales but had enormous legs that carried it to the record breaking sales by the middle of its lifetime.

I'm arguing that the PS2 start off as a very hardcore console, expensive and with complex games that didn't appeal to casuals, however as more casual games appeared and prices fell, casuals got hold of it and fuelled its sales.

The PS2 sales can roughly be applied to almost all older generation consoles and the PS3 and 360 (long term legs on these consoles and appeal to casuals has yet to materialise though)

Compare that to the Wii. Its simple controls, low price and bias towards casual gamers (and I stress bias and not lack of hardcore games) have made the Wii sales reversed as compared to the traditional model/understanding. I.e. casuals a buying it in large numbers at the sart of its lifetime than in the middle (along with hardcore buyers).

This has also contributed to the lack of 3rd party content due to the low sales (attach rates) of 3rd party software (assuming 3rd party is more niche and hardcore. i.e. bought by owners that leap before they look into a new franchise).

This fact is also proven by the low attach rates of PS2 blockbusters (5-6m sales out of a user-base of 100m)...

My point is, I believe that the Wii is at risk of being branded a casual console where 3rd party hardcore titles will never sell enough and hence leave the other two consoles as the place to find these titles.

While this will not affect the sales of the Wii in the short term, it might have an impact when developers target the other two consoles and support increases and with it sales.

With support for the other consoles, more casual games will appear and tempt more casuals to move to those consoles once prices come down enough.

While it seems to be a foregone conclusion on who will win this race, it may be a matter that the Wii60 or the PSWii will be more prevalent in the future than it is now, and people will need a HD console if they want the latest in cutting edge gaming from 3rd parties...