Europe has become Sony's strongest market and consoles are gaining steam here (the PC gaming market has significantly declined, in the NES era a relatively much larger share of gamers were using home computers instead). And the rest of the world combined can easily rival Japan for the long term.

With all those shortages I can't say I fully trust VGChartz' figures, around here at the major stores only new bundles are available.

A couple things they don't take into account:

1. Nintendo has made an extremely healthy profit on every single console

2. Sony has taken considerable loss on every console sold, and are still not profitable yet

I don't know if PS3 will sell over 125 million consoles or not. Even though the blue-ray drive is said to be the next-gen video storage standard, it is still not widely used. The DVD is still, by far, the most widely used standard for movie rentals.

By the time that Blueray surpasses DVD (which I am not sure is going to happen anytime soon with the popularity of $1 rentals at redbox, and the extra expense of Blueray), Blueray could be obsolete itself. Video streaming is the new technology and it is widely adaptable. With companies like Netflix, Blockbuster, and Walmart jumping into video streaming I am not sure how bright the future for Blueray is. It may never supplant the DVD in the way that the DVD supplanted VHS.

Let's be honest here: a lot of people bought PS2s to use as DVD players, and a lot of people bought PS3s to use as Blueray players. This demographic might have bought a game or 2, but not much else. PS2s also had a significant jump in sales because of the high system failure rate of the PS2-- people had to buy more than 1 PS2.

Once Sony drops the PS3 price down to $200 (in the next 2-4 years), there may be a few people that are interested in picking the PS3 up as a Blueray player. However, if Bluerays have still not achieved critical mass in society-- then less people are likely to buy the PS3 to use as a blueray player.

There are a lot of factors that need to be considered in this analysis. It is still not at all guaranteed that the PS3 will be able to have the longevity that the PS2 did.

I think the PS3 should be able to sell 100 million units, but can we really expect the sales of PS3s to continue growing every-year in a cyclical console business? I think the PS3 will hit a peak in the next 2-4 years. If Xbox and Nintendo release new consoles, this will also limit the growth ability of the PS3.

The PS3 can only sell over 100 million if maintains growth for the next 5 years. I'm not sure it can do that.

Mike, don't call Europe "Most of the world". That makes americans irritated.

And still the PS3 is 4.5M behind the PS2 in Europe, two holiday seasons vs three. Optimism can be another word for delusion.

Don't call America, Europe and Japan, "most of the world", the day ultra super giga duper high taxes are gone from Brazil, we shall dominate the video-game market, mwhahwahwhawhahwahwh

I didn't call Europe most of the world.

@ Twistedpixel

I already explained before the PS3 launched why I thought the PS3 uptake would be slower initially than was the case for the PS2. (Being ahead for its time much more so than the PS2 was, this translates into higher entry pricing and problems regarding adapting legacy game engines, also relatively new and high tech such as HDTV, fast internet access and surround audio setup are preferred)

Wow. In predictions, you usually try to be either right, or close. And then there are the wrong ones. There's fail, uber fail, epic fail, complete total dumbass (Hi, Pachter), and then there's this guy, somewhere out past delusional. Not going to happen. Seriously.

Think a better prediction is will 360,Ps3 combined reach 137m units?

of course nothing is impossible, its just improbable, can Sony create a time machine to go back in time and re adjust the ps3s launch price to $300 so they will WIN the gaming generation all over again and destroy the xbox 360 once and for all why YES they can god dammit, so yea not impossible to do but very unlikely to happen because you need harndess the infinite power of a exploding black hole or something like that, and i bet sony is looking for one right now, hahahaha