I'm surprised there's so many people voting anything other than games tbh. Even people like Dtewi who says it was because of the Wiimote is actually saying the Wii sold because of Wii Sports.

Sega had better marketing than Nintendo during nes/snes era but lost

Sony dominated despite there always being cheaper options on the market

Word of mouth requires games that are good enough for people to want to talk about

1.) Killer Aps, IE Games that people(Casual or Hardcore) must play no matter the price, availability or the hardware.

2.) A steady stream of Killer Aps

Prices cuts just create momentary sales spikes.

Also hardware can be ugly and/or unreliable but with the right games, the hardware can ascend.

Finally, aggressive marketing that communicates the right way and having people play games before buying the hardware helps too.

Ahhh....  Most posters on this site don't like the idea that the Wii especially is a success due to the "Popular" scenario.  We seem to be on the same wavelength on this in that the Wii became the "it" thing, and it has retained that image in general.  I have to concede, at this point in all of the consoles life cycle, they each have a decent enough game library.  With that said, why do people still buy Wii's?  By now, all of the people who are "Gamers" or "Hardcore" probably have all 3 systems or have what they can afford.  It's the rest of the people who are out there who still buy the Wii...  The people who don't really care which they buy, but can't help but to get what everyone else has(like i have said in other posts - Ipods/sliced bread/cabbage patch dolls/ELMO).

Hey, I have this system...  It's not the initial cost that gets you, its the upkeep!!!

Also, notice how the hands on the shirt are Female(look at the finger nails and the watch)

The price for me.

Marketing.

Without naming names, this generation has proven that with great marketing, even a shoddy product can sell Millions.

Price

If im buying a multiplayer shooter game in a few months am I going to be more likely to get Killzone or Call of Duty? It doesn't matter how much better anyone tells me Killzone is if Call of Duty is the game I know, strike one and all my friends play it and not the other game, strike two. The fact that I can probably get the previous game for free from a friend because hes moved onto a new version helps makes that strike 3 for why Killzone just got struck out of this contest. The same really applies as well to consoles as it does to individual games, especially when we have multiplayer etc.

The general public will only grow an affinity to what is familiar to them. The more a console sells the more likely it is to become familiar to people who may want to own one. Rapid sales growth begets rapid sales growth, which is the path that the Wii took to success in 2006. There are other reasons like excitement, fear of not being able to buy one, keeping up with the Jones family etc which also come into play too.

Core gamers are idiots, casuals wait until the game has been proved to be good before they buy it.

Games

Without naming names, this generation has proven that, even the best hardware in console history means nothing with no games.