OK so just because MW3 and Skyrim are big we shouldn't count them? Just because Wii has not a lick of 3rd party support we shouldn't count PS3/360 big 3rd party games? I won't forget to remove Zelda sales next week to match your counting method.

It's not *that* those games are big, it's that those two big games are skewing the numbers for this specific week. It would be like, as you say, using a week when the only big release is Zelda, to determine who is selling more. It would be like looking at the week that the Wii launched, and comparing hardware sales of the Wii in that week to sales of the Xbox 360 in the same week - it's not a fair comparison, because it's not a typical week for the Wii.

In this case, it's not a typical week for the PS3 and 360. And it's worth noting that I also subtracted the Wii version of Modern Warfare 3's sales. We know that first-week sales, especially on PS3 and 360, are typically very high. Therefore, it is unfair to compare software sales in the same week when there are games having first-week sales.

A year ago, on the week ending 13th of November 2010, the 360 sold 9,328,468, the PS3 sold 6,492,602, and the Wii sold 4,468,119. This was the week of the release of Black Ops. In the following week, with only Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood as a significant release, and no major Wii release again, the 360 sold 5,387,612, the PS3 sold 4,368,778, and the Wii sold 5,297,428.

The week after that, the 360 sold 6,062,390, the PS3 sold 7,193,033, and the Wii sold 9,211,500 - and this was in the week that Gran Turismo 5 released on the PS3 (and Donkey Kong Country Returns on Wii... which just broke 500,000 in the first week, and thus doesn't account for the high sales). This was the last week of November.

In December, Wii went 9.6 million, 12.4 million, 15 million, and 17.1 million. The 360 never broke 10 million in any week of December, and the PS3 maxed out at 7.4 million.

The point, here, is that a one-week comparison in which a major PS3/360 title is released is not a fair comparison. That there were two such titles in the same week only makes it a worse comparison.

The timing you mention doesn't include typical Wii weeks either : we know that at the end of the year casual newbies run to buy the system for their kiddies for Xmas. If you want a fair comparison then rendez-vous on January 1st with total SW divided by 52, and we'll see who's on top...

Did I just reopened this thread?

A moving average would be effective to determine trends, actually.

But let's just do a bit of simple estimation. Right now, the 2011 sales data says that, to date, 360 and PS3 have each sold roughly 95 million units of software in 2011 (360 ahead of PS3 by about 800,000), while the Wii is at about 82 million.

Supposing that the systems see a similar sales pattern for December as they did last year, with Wii numbers scaled down by, say, 20%... then we could expect the Wii to gain somewhere of the order of 15 million over 360 (slightly more over PS3). So it's very likely that the three systems will be almost identical in software sales.

Which is remarkable in and of itself, really, given that this is the list of notable Wii titles released this year: Just Dance 3, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game, Rhythm Heaven Wii, Dragon Quest 25 Shuunen Kinin: Famicom & Super Famicom Dragon Quest I-II-III (Japan only), Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Wii Play Motion... and then Country Dance, at less than 300,000 copies. And, of course, Skyward Sword, which hasn't been released, yet.

And note that I haven't accounted for Skyward Sword sales in my estimation - the closest equivalent from last year was Donkey Kong Country Returns, which didn't quite make 4 million in 2010. Zelda could easily outperform this.

On a side note, your use of the phrase "casual newbies" is highly elitist, and not at all in a good way. Indeed, a large majority of Call of Duty gamers are no less casual than those who will buy Just Dance 3.

100 mil life time and i will be happy.

20 mil more than XB360 and I will be super happy.

Come on even Gamecube did almost as much as Xbox.

MS needs to do something to create something great at least Play Station had PS1 and PS2.

it is practically impossible for a console that has sold 90m to be doomed

also, WiiU has been announced so the 90% of Wii's support is gone so it's normal to slow down...

and the Wii is still doing great, considering very few releases and support, where HD consoles get HUGE games, so Wii is holding up really good!!