@konnichiwa: Usually the most stupid comments at the start of my posts are sarcasm. So yes. After all, we have only had six months of this kind of topics.

@Mike: Indeed, but the time GC and XB were released, PS2 had "all" the games and it had already outsold GC or XB lifetime sales.

When the GC and X-Box were released they sold pretty damn good.....I think weekly terms the PS2 was probably getting about 40% of the market worldwide weekly....a year later the x-box slowed a bit and another year later the GC had slowed considerably more, then both stopped selling.

You have to look at everything to compare, it doesn't work when you compare total end marketshare of last gen to the weekly of this gen.

Also that doesn't take into account market expansion....I mean what if the total market size doubled from last to this gen, that would mean 40% of the market would be more than 120 million anyway.
If the market grows by 50% (from 180mil to 270), and PS3/360 start to slow down a bit meaning Wii is consistently getting 55% of weekly share then it could end up with nearly 140 million.

Basically no one knows....If i were forced to bet on it i would put Wii at roughly 100-110 million, and PS3 and 360 combined taking a further 100 million between them....but the potential for the Wii is vast if all works out well (Blue Ocean, China/India etc) and although i don't forsee heights that John Lucas would sneer at for being too low, I think Wii could quite easily pass 200 million if things work out (again roughly 100M between the other two)

argh! ok visit this thread; http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?start=50&id=10309

go to near the bottom and read my two posts....The Wii is doing just as well as the PS2 did in Japan, is slightly higher in Europe (though if you include all 'other' regions it is tracking the same) and doing quite a bit better in North America....Worldwide it is doing much better (though that is mainly because of the Japan only 1st 4 months of PS2)

500m can you imagine I doubt that would happen, but if it did I think 3rd parties would really support it

Right now the absolute minimum I can imagine the Wii selling is 60 around million, and that's only if the general public suddenly starts caring about high definition, and/or Nintendo get stupid and release their next console too early.

If I had to put numbers on the different things that could happen:

20% - Non-gamers lose interest, lack of HD starts to bug people, exclusives run away, and Nintendo's next console comes quick. Around NES level sales.
60% - More or less dominates generation, gets virtually all the big exclusives, sells 90-150% of what the PS2 did.
20% - Utterly insane numbers that change the industry forever. More than twice PS2 numbers. John Lucas elected President of Gaming, begged by industry to tell them what to do next.

The big unknown here is that it's difficult to say how long the Wii will remain on the market, because no one has tried a similar strategy before (well the DS sorta did, I don't have to tell you how well that went), and it really seems like all of the console makers want to make this generation longer than the previous ones.

The Wii might prove that games are more about innovative design and less about horsepower. Nintendo might even be able to do this without the traditional big developers if the Wii Ware service really gets going, and allows quirky games by basement development teams to potentially sell (and make) millions. In this scenario, Nintendo feels no need to release a more powerful console, but might do new models with slightly different functions, more DS connectivity etc.

As for Sony and Microsoft, they've both thrown a lot of money into their consoles, and so far have made very little of it back. I've heard the talking heads of MS say they want to extend this generation in order to make some money, and I imagine Sony feels the same way.

Of course if the Wii ends up completely dominating the game, then we might see one or both of the other companies doing something drastic. I see the most likely case here to be PS3 sales dropping to Gamecube levels (or not rising from them to be precise), and Sony trying to make a come-back with a PS4 using the first mover advantage for next gen.

It would really be interesting if this PS4 would again be something different that changes gaming and forces the other companies to change as well, like the PS1 did, although the suits making the decisions for the whole company might just decide to sell their software studios, quit the console business, and go back to making electronics. Sony is not a gaming company, and they will not keep making games until the bitter like Nintendo will, or Sega did. The business model they used with the PS1 and 2 (tried with the PS3) depends on selling at a loss and making the money back after achieving the largest install base, and it remains to be seen how well they can adapt to being in third place until 09 at the very least. The biggest factor in this case would be how well the rest of Sony's many divisions are doing at the time of the hypothetical hard choice.

Now this worst case scenario was never that likely, and has started seeming even less so during the last few weeks, so Sony fans please don't kill me. =P

Ah crap, I'm so far off-topic I don't even remember what thread this is anymore. ;__;

Depend on whether or not Nintendo can produce that many Wiis during Wii's life time.

hahahahahaha

I say yes, if things continue the way they are going.

No, it will not.

if the demand after holidays period surpasses production, it might persuade nintendo to start thinking about larger production, and if they start producing around 3+ millions/mont starting from second half of next year, it could reach 80 millions by the end of 2009. From there everything is possible.

Only thing that Nintendo will be pretty much reluctant to invest in another production facility, so the demand after holidays should be REALLY big.

 Edit: another option would be redesigning the wii (wii Lite :P ) to simplyfy it and to make the production of it faster and cheaper.  It would probably allow a nice pricecut and Japanese would go crazy over it (they like their tech in small packages)