No straight analyst could possibly think that Wii sales will just die. Not one. Consider that it may not be in stock everywhere until mid 2008, even with nintendo's increased supply. Then, consider that Nintendo hasn't dropped price yet, has only released a fraction of its huge titles, and word of mouth tends to sell the console. Even assuming people are getting sick of the Wii, which doesn't seem to be happening en masse, people are discovering it at a faster rate. There are still a lot of people out there who want a Wii. But they don't know it yet.

Nintendo can likely afford to drop the Wii's price to $99 eventually. How a system that's selling, literally, at a record pace when priced at $250 can somehow fall off of the map despite having a huge potential for still-profitable price drops is just unimaginable to me. I don't see how in the world an analyst could come to that conclusion.

Their idea that it will live 10 years in the same way that the PS2 will live in 10 years is questionable.  The reasoning I have is price: the PS3 will have to be significantly cheaper than the PS4 when it is succeeded, likely 2012ish.  The PS2 could do this for two reasons:

(1) it was moderately priced hardware its entire life.  Its costs never approached the level of the PS3.

(2) The PS3 was so expensive that it helped push the PS2.

If Sony wants to avoid making the "extremely costly console" mistake next time around, and I believe that's why they fired Kutagari, then they may not be able to sell the PS3 cheaply enough to justify its purchase to people considering it or the PS4.

I still think these analysts are underestimating the Wii ...

In the Playstation/N64/Saturn generation the non-dominant consoles had total sales in the 50 Million range; in the PS2/Gamecube/XBox/Dreamcast generation this jumped to (roughly) 60 Million. If this pattern continues I would expect that the maximum total sales the PS3 and XBox 360 will be able to achieve is 70 Million between both systems.

2008 will be a much bigger year for the Wii than 2007 was, its supply will be much higher (probably averaging 1 Million more per month), it will finally be getting some decent third party support, it will likely see a price reduction or bundle, and Millions of non-gamers will be exposed to it as its userbase grows and will potentially become very interested. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Wii sell at three times the rate of the XBox 360 and PS3 through 2008.

Well right now it's 42.7/38.8/18.5
And he's saying 46/33/22...

Wii +3.3%
360 -5.8%
PS3 +3.5%

Although probably closer than most of these idiotic analysts, that seems like a worst case scenario for the Wii, it would either stop selling well eventually or get replaced by the Wii 2 before the others.

Also, 46, 33, and 22 is 101%, which I'm sure is just from rounding, but it's still amusing.

Probably the most realistic thing I've heard from an analyst so far, but that isn't saying much.

Then again all they've done is switch from "things at the end of this gen will be exactly like last gen!", to "things at the end of this gen will be exactly like the first year of this gen!"

One analyst out of a group of hundreds?

Please, the Wii is selling well. Ive said it a hundred times, the XBOX is not selling well. It is..sorry was doing better than the PS3 this first year with the PS3 at a high price point and none of its killer titles.

At 299 with MGS4, FF, and GT5 why would you NOT buy a PS3? This analyst is obviously an idiot.

The Xbox isn't even outselling the PS3 right now. How the hell would it start with a PS3 price drop and all the exclusives that are coming to the PS3?

When someone has an answer to that then maybe i could believe that, but all year long we can expect exclusive after exclusive to keep the PS3 outselling the Xbox 2-1 monthly.

Now if this guy knows something we dont know about the exclusive lineup, then maybe hes right.

At $99 with Zelda, Mario, Metroid and Super Smash Bros. why would you NOT buy a Gamecube?

I'm pretty certain that the 80%+ of gamers who didn't buy a PS2 at $299 to play those games are probably not interested in a PS3 at $299.

Realistically speaking, people didn't buy a PS2 because Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Gran Turismo were available for it; people bought Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Gran Turismo because they were the best games on a platform they already owned. To date we have seen every game series that was released on the PS2 see sales that are (approximately) 1/4 to 1/3 of what the same games saw on the PS2; expect these games to underperform compared to their PS2 counterparts.

Heh. I still giggle at how many analysts thought the Wii would instafail. If I remember correctly, Citigroup didn't even have the Wii on their list...only X360 vs PS3.

If Citigroup is right, we're still going to see A LOT more developer resources on PS3 and 360, since the combined marketshare is about 2/3rds.

I personally think this is crap, solely because I cannot see 360 doing so well. I think 360's great games are already all out, and there's nothing left up Microsoft's sleeve. We've seen it all on 360 while Wii and PS3 are only just getting started.

"""At $99 with Zelda, Mario, Metroid and Super Smash Bros. why would you NOT buy a Gamecube?"""

==> because they were better game on the PS2 ?
or because the GameCube brand name was owned by the Playstation brand name ?

"""Realistically speaking, people didn't buy a PS2 because Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Gran Turismo were available for it; people bought Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Gran Turismo because they were the best games on a platform they already owned."""

==> any demonstration in ur comment ? any evidence ?
no
just claiming ....
I, like the others, bought a PS2 to play my favorite games : FF/MGS/GT
This is the mix of these games that make the PS brand name.
Even if Microsoft is trying, with great success, to disturb Sony, MGS/FF are still exclusive (or timed exclusive) to Sony ... and that is good thing for all the PS fan

"""I'm pretty certain that the 80%+ of gamers who didn't buy a PS2 at $299 to play those games are probably not interested in a PS3 at $299."""

==> but, last gen, "every" gamers bought a PS2 ....
Personnaly, I believe that +80% of GC owners are not interested in those games but I also believe a lot of PS2 gamers are interested in those games and will buy a PS3 to play them.


"""
To date we have seen every game series that was released on the PS2 see sales that are (approximately) 1/4 to 1/3 of what the same games saw on the PS2; expect these games to underperform compared to their PS2 counterparts.
"""

==> do u mean, GT4 sold less than GT3 for example ?
or SC3 less than SC2 ?
or Tekken 5 less than Tekken4 ?

dont u think it is because, for multiplayer game, the first release of 1 serie in a hardware sell always better than the sequel (like GT2 sold less than GT on PSX)

I doubt we will see another price drop in the next year. If we do, it will be around black friday next year. Sony is just losing way too much money on the PS3 to drop the price any further.