First Post:

To be honest, I think that its silly to try to predict which system will win next year when we dont know what the final lineup will be for Holiday 08. If any of the three systems were to announce a big exclusive (like Kingdom Hearts 3 or a new Star Fox or God of War III) then this would all change completely.

However, given what we now know, I will make a prediction. The Wii will continue to dominate. Wii Fit will sell very well, driving hardware sales but without a large affect on other software. Smash Brothers and Mario Kart will sell in the millions and keep the Wii in demand throughout the Spring. The new colors will help move systems in Japan and I imagine that new colors will be introduced in other markets shortly thereafter

I also think that the 360 and PS3 will remain relatively even, but that PS3 will gradually continue to catch up in worldwide sales. Since GTA and DMC will appear on both consoles, neither will gain much benefit from either game. MGSIV is the most significant announced game of 08 that is exclusive to either PS3 or 360, so the PS3 will benefit from this. However, I dont know if Metal Gear's appeal is wide enough to make a huge difference (I could be wrong, though).

Predictions for the end of 2008:
Wii: 38 million
360: 25 million
PS3: 23 million

As a sidenote, I am very interested in how Ghostbusters sells next winter. This is (I think) the first major third-party game (not counting GHIII) announced for all three systems at the same time. Therefore, I think that the performance of Ghostbusters could have a huge influence on how the rest of this generation plays out.

Well, Reggie cheated. This new Wii "voucher" thing is going to allow Nintendo to carry 100% of their christmas demand right over into January. Anyone who cant find a Wii for christmas is buying these vouchers and if you notice, the vouchers say you HAVE to pick your Wii up by the last day of January. This effectively will allow them to have a January that feels like christmas. Since the majority of the Jan sales will have been purchased on the christmas rush. They will sell out in January based on that, then smash hits in february and they ride that month to sellouts too.

The media will eat it up with stuff like "Its been over a year and 2 christmas's and Wiis are hard to find this February just like last year! Its gonna happen all over again in 2008!!111" which will just fuel the demand even more. 

I dont know that I would call that cheating. If they cant meet demand, then the potential sales from December will be divided between December and January. So, lets say that they would sell 1.5 million in December without supply issues. With supply issues, lets say that they sell 900,000 in December and 1 million in January ( the remaining 600,000 from December plus 400,000 from regular January sales). The system will sell the same. The only difference is if those sales are spread across one month or two. I dont think that this will make a difference to Nintendo, financially speaking. If anything, I would think that they would want to sell as much as possible during December so that they could say that they set December sales records.
Please note, I am not saying that the Wii will sell 1 million in January. I was just using those numbers as a hypothetical mathematical comparison.

So you think the Wii will sell around 20m next year, the 360 around 9m - and the PS3 14-15m?

Possible - although you are a brave man to suggest that Ninty will not sell out, given the current level of production (around 22m, at 1.8m/month).

Everyone seems under-bullish on the 360 - I'm not too sure why. Its much closer to a mass market price than the PS3 is, and it has some real killer titles hitting next year.

<shrug> 

Well as long as people are taking guesses I will go with this:

2008:

Wii: 21.5m
360: 8.5m
PS3: 9m

Total @ end of 2008:

Wii: 40.5m
360: 24.4m
PS3: 17.2m

Not a whole lot of analysis there, just some quick glances.

I think this is very telling:

Brave? Maybe. I will preface this by saying that I own a Wii and I do not own a 360 or a PS3. I believe that the Wii will continue to be the best-selling system. However, I dont know how long it will be able to be a complete sell-out. Honestly, I dont think we have ever seen a system sell-out for this long, so we are in very hard to predict territory here. I have to believe that the instant sell-out status has to stop at some point. I also believe that the sales of Brawl and Mario Kart will support the Wii once some of the system's holiday hype dies down. So, the system will sell very well, but will cease to be an instant sell-out (in theory). However, the release dates of FF:CC and Monster Hunter 3 are major Japanese wildcards here and could have a major impact on worldwide sales.
What killer exclusive titles does 360 have? I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, I am really curious.

If I'm not mistaken Nintendo is producing around 2.4-2.6 million DS' so I would expect sales in the high 26-30 million ranged. The Wii is being produced at 1.8 million a month which I would expect to be increased at least some. There is no reason to not anticipate Nintendo will sell all of the Wiis they produce so I would say sales should be in the 23-25 million range. No real need to analyze either of them since as Shams has noted they aren't as interesting as the PS360 battle.

I think the 360 is the harder of the 2 to predict since MS doesn't have its hands tied to the degree Sony does. If MS plays conservative and tries to earn a full year profit next year (ie no price cuts, no major payouts for exclusives, fewer bundles and such) then I would expect the 360 to sell about what it did this year with more of its sales coming from NA as the PS3 kills it in JP and EU. Should MS decide to be more aggressive then it could easily see a decent sales bump though still no where near the Wii. That would give a range of 9-13 million for the 360.

At this point Sony is at the mercy of MS and Konami's accountants. If MS says "screw the losses full steam ahead" there isn't much Sony can do to respond. The price to buy a 2008 exclusive for MS has to have dropped considerably compared with 2007. Similarly Kojima must be getting lonelier and lonelier over at Konami. They've got to be burning him in effigy over in the Konami accounting department. Worst case scenario, Konami wises up and MS goes for the jugular then PS3 sales fall to 6 million without a smaller share from NA. Best case scenario, the accountants at MS win while the ones at Konami lose, sales will increase reasonably to 10million.

The PSP, ehh, who cares. We're talking about video game systems here.

In easier to read chart form:
DS- 26-30 m/90-94 m
Wii- 23-25 m/42-44 m
360- 9-13 m/25-28m
PS3- 6-10m/15-18m

Note though I think the sales of the PS3+360 will be 19 million. I don't think we'll see the 360 sell 13 million and the PS3 10 million.

Heres my prophecy..

The Wii shall for the most part dominate the console of 2008. However, in November of 2008 a 28 year year old who lives with his parents will bring forth a possible jugdement day when he puts “Super Smash Brother Brawl” in his Wii (that just sounds wrong) “Halo 4 Combat Re re evolved” in his 360 and Killzone 2 in his PS3. By doing so the Holy Trinity is complete and a light will shine to the heavens and Jesus Christ will come down. The light will also penetrate the earth and Satan will emerge. They’ll battle for everyones soul on “Guitar Hero 4: Slightly less Rockers then the previous Rockers” However the battle will be postpond due to even more glitches and bugs then previous Guitar Hero games. Including one on the Wii that causes the notes to appear in brail.

In the end Jesus and Satan get mad and head back to their proper positions and wait until “Guitar Hero 5: We swear we fixed all the bugs” is released to settle the feud.

PDF (as a graphic designer, love the name) seems basically ignored. I don't entirely agree with him beause I think MS will seriously undercut Sony's price point, but I think he has an honest point. Sony seems to be pulling strong units in Europe while MS struggles. In spring, if MS pulls a 279 price point for the Pro, Sony is in trouble. If MS sits and waits with their price point, Europe goes to Sony.

 Like I have said in other threads, 2008 will be VERY interesting to watch.