Pachter: Wii 2 (w/ HD) May come in a few years, PS3 to catch Wii in 2011

[Bodhesatva]

Christopher_G2 said:

To those of you who say the PS3 has no shot tell me what is the 360 doing that's so great sales wise. Console sales have fell in the US over the past few months even with the release of the Elite model. It's doing, like it's predecessor, horrible in Japan, and is doing at best so-so in the Other terretories. If the 360 was a system trully taking off I might agree that the PS3 is in serious trouble, but the fact is it isn't. It basically gets outsold not only by the Wii and DS everywhere in the world, it gets outsold by the PS2 and more recently the PSP. The fact is right now both HD systems are floundering. The 360 is doing better than the PS3, but that doesn't really mean it's doing as well as it's should be. Come 2008 and 2009 the HD gaming battle will be wide open.

I kind of laugh at those here who think they really know what's going to happen in the console race. I don't claim to know how it plays out long term. Last gen at this time we knew the PS2 was going to dominate. There's no such clear trend this time. The Wii is off to a great start but it's inovation and it being behind technically the other two consoles make it hard to see how long it keeps this momentum. Sony undoubtedly still has a stronger brand name than Microsoft as far as video games, but so far the 360 seems to be winning, though one can argue with the price and game advantages it should be winning by a greater margin. We have one system with a head start that has sold 10 million, another that came out six months ago at over three million, and another inbetween that's selling faster than any console this early on but is so different we have nothing to compare to it on a long term scale. We have no f*cking idea how it's going to play out long term. People should understand this. The only two things that I can say will not happen are:

*The 360 selling the most worldwide

*The Wii coming worse than second

Other than that any order of the three is possible. It could be Wii, PS3, 360 (I lean toward this way). It could be Wii, 360, PS3 (where most people here are probably). Or it could even be PS3, Wii, 360. People here who really think they know any more than Pachter are really snobish little freaks.

This is an odd argument: the PS2 was selling less at this point in its lifespan than the Wii is now. The original Xbox was selling better than the PS3 is now, and the Gamecube selling about the same.

Can you please explain to me how we knew what would happen last generation, but somehow we don't now?

Sources:

http://www.vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Japan&cons2=Wii&reg2=Japan&cons3=PS2&reg3=Total+Other&align=1&weekly=1
http://www.vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=America&cons2=Wii&reg2=America&cons3=PS2&reg3=Total+Other&align=1&weekly=1

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS3&reg1=All&cons2=GC&reg2=All&cons3=XB&reg3=All&align=1&weekly=1

Note: please recognize that the Xbox/GC/PS2 totals don't include European figures, because Ioi doesn't have them. That's why I broke the first two into Japan/American components, to show that Wii is outselling the PS2 in both territories. Also note that this makes PS3 even worse in the last graph: it's being outsold by the Xbox, and barely outselling hte GC, even though it has sales in 3 territories, and the GC/Xbox in just 2.

In short, if you want to claim that the race was totally decided last generation by this time period, you must conclude that this one is too. The Wii is outpacing the PS2 ssales, the PS3 is underperforming against the Gamecube and Xbox. In short, the Wii is beating the PS3 worse than the PS2 beat the Gamecube seven months after the launch windows closed.