Right folks, I want your feedback and opinions on how the Wii will pan out over the course.

It's pretty obvious that the Wii has started very strongly, so much so that demand outweighs supply. 6.5m Wii have been sold so far, only 5 months after it's release and there seems to be no stopping it....or is there?

The PS3 having been released at the same time (apart from Europe) has sold only half the number of Wii's. This isn't surprising to say the least, seeing as the Wii in the UK comes in at an affordable £180 whereas the PS3 is now selling for £400.

Then there's the 360. Now this is a wierd one. It's a good machine, it's pretty cheap considering, there are quite some number of great looking games out for it, but sales have started to slump. It's been on the market 12 months more than the Wii and the PS3, and has managed to get near 10m sales worldwide, but it's a disaster in Japan and it's niche seems to be NA more than any other at the moment.

Anyway, back to the Wii, how long can it last? Well I get the feeling that it won't be around for too long. Now saying that, I don't mean that it will bomb this year or next, but over the course of 3 years, demand IMO will seriously slow down. Why? I hear you ask. Well it's just one of those things. The Wii has intentionally been created to be significantly less powerful than both the 360 and PS3; in fact, the Wii is only slightly more powerful than the PS2 and Xbox and this will become more noticeable over the next few years. One other setback will be the graphic resolution. Stuck to 480p (what the PS2, Xbox and DC have been displaying for years) will be another setback for the console. People are buying HDTV's in their droves. I now know few people with SDTV's anymore (myself being one of the few) and you can get a 720p LCD for under £500 and before anyone says it....yes it is noticeable between 480p and 720p. Blu-Ray and HDDVD players will start to come down in price, people are getting more into HD and people expect more.

The Wii will sell loads though and I predict that they will sell around 16m units worldwide by the end of the year, but we will see a reduce next year and a huge reduction the following year. The 360 has already started to slow down in sales and IMO the Wii will have more sales this year than the 360 by the year end. The PS3 has had a slow start and this will continue until Sony reduce the cost. This I feel will happen this year, but sales of the PS3 will grow steadily from the end of this year through the next 3-4 years.

The bottom line is this. The Wii seems like a great console for the now, but it does and will have limited appeal over the longer term. So all in all, I see the Wii having a great 2007, a decent 2008 and a poor 2009 with sales being extremely low come 2010. So a 3-4 year lifespan IMO is on the cards.

So folks, what's your thoughts?

it depends how it does with the non games and non gamers

people buying it for wii sports/health/fitness/brain/ dont care about hd,dolby and stuff

they a see a game and want it

also in 2010 it will probably cost like $150 or maybe less so even owners of ps3 and 360 maybe will buy one for party games and/or exclusives

I dunno... I think the Wii will last as long as Nintendo wants it to.

There are some things that are working for Nintendo right now, as opposed to the PS3 and Xbox360:

- Nintendo is not losing money for each Wii sold; the other two are, so in that sense they probably are very close to, if not already, recouped their R&D, marketing and manufacturing expenditure

- Nintendo does not need a giant user base; it just needs enough, and current momentum suggests it may reach that magic number sooner than later; the PS3, on the other hand, requires a giant user base to cover game dev costs and hardware losses; Xbox can't afford to lose money either (although Microsoft does treat most of its investments as "charities", but for how long?)

- Nintendo can drop prices anytime they want to and still underprice the other two, spurring more sales; the other two would probably be loath to do the same right now

- Nintendo's strategy does not focus on graphics quality, and has attracted a demographic (moms, pops, casual gamers, non-gamers who probably have never seen, or care for, "nex-gen graphics") that doesn't really care for graphics in the sense that PS3 and Xbox360 would like them to

- Third world countries would rather buy a 250usd console rather than a 400-600usd console, not because it's better or worse, but because it's affordable (I live in a first-world country but am from the third world, and believe me, prices are EVERYTHING!); too bad there aren't any sales data concentrating on said countries. Believe it or not, many of these countries are still selling SNES compatible consoles because most people simply can't afford anything else. I used to sell - get this - cloned NES systems to Mexico as recently as four years ago. If that isn't testament to the (lack of) buying power of third world countries, I don't know what is.

- Nintendo still has its "TEH KIDDIEZ!!!111one!" to count on; once prices drop for the Wii, it may become the "Gameboy Advance / NDS Lite" of the console world (and we all know how well those systems sold)

- I still think Nintendo is right with their "the current graphics are good enough" mantra - just look at the graphics on the DS - lousy compared to the PSP, yet outselling it 2:1; in the eyes of the new demographic, it most certainly is enough. Not to say I don't think the PS3 and Xbox 360 has fantastic graphics, but most people within the Wii's demographic have never raised an issue about the graphics looking "lousy"

Anyway, my 2 cents'... 

The Wii will sell alot but its kind of hard to see it selling 100m+. Ps2 had 1 year headstart and that is why it could sell so much and many developers jumped from ps1 till ps2 and there is the graphic thing too. Many developers will jump over till Wii and many have already begun but most of them is going to be in 2008. The Wii have potential to sell more then ps2 but it seems to have bad timing. I believe in 2009 the Wii will not sell very well, better than ps3/360 but not ps1/ps2 there is going to be huge graphic defference and the ps3/360 will have many things Wii dont have. I can also see many casuals players owning only 3-4 games totally.

This is the "PSP vs. DS argument" and the time showed it´s still about games as it was with all consoles released in the past.

If Wii get´s games like the PS2 did why should it stop selling in 3 years? It just doesn´t make sense to me...

I have to agree with 'your mother'.

Wii is already at a point where profit can be made by 3th party devs... And with demand so high it will reach the magic point of no return in a matter of months.

Wii will outsell the Gamecube and probably will outsell the N64. That means it's a succes for Nintendo and with the wii already making profit there's more money in the bag for the 8th round.

Now i hear Davygee saying: It's worser looking graphics will be Wii's downfall in the end. Well, i have to disagree: With the wii widening the market (casual and non-gamers stuff) they are reaching out to people who really don't care.

Like my family, they saw me X360 when i was playing GoW... and thought, that looks so real but then again, didn't feel like; 'Ow, thats interesting to me, i wanna have it' But if you let em play Wii sports they are all like, where can i buy it, how much does it cost and stuff... They don't care, the graphics are good enough. And the fun you can get out of it will make sure lots and lots of 'normal' people will pick the system up sooner or later. And by that time, it will have reach a point in sales from where it can sell through enough software to keep support up, making sure the system will endure for at least 5 years.

The same is happening to DS, we have 2 DS's at home, one is for me and my brother, the other is for my parents... And they bought it because they liked brain training and stuff... Almost NO single adult or 'non-gamer' cares about HD-tv's/Blu-ray/HD-graphics/Real time physics...

All they want is fun and believe it or not, they will have it the most with Nintendo Wii.

@ 'your mother' & 'StarcraftManiac'

very good arguments ..

i agree with you

The problem is how many games will the casual gamers buy really? It have been 4 months since launch in Europe and I still have 3 friends who only own Wiisports because here in europe we get the game in the package. I am not saying that Wii gamers buy less games I am saying that the casual gamers wont have like 15+ games. The trend is less games and more controls for the Wii and that is not going to help devevopers that much. "theory" I believe that is the same reason why PC dont get many big games now because of 8million people are playing WoW and of piracy. Userbase dont really matter if the gamers dont buy the games. Wiisports/Wiiplay are too damn fun :D

Another thing to consider is that the Wii's graphics have hit a point which is "Good Enough" for many genres and art styles:

Certainly, you can improve on the quality of these graphics quite dramatically but how much do you really benefit? Much like comics and cartoons it is often more appropriate to represent something in a less realistic fashion than a more realistic one. Now I know someone's going to make the connection that "Cartoons and Comics are Kiddie" but much like South Park, The Simpsons, Spawn and most graphic novels that are being turned into movies lately being less realistic allows you to push the boundries with less risk that a realist representation.

If Nintendo can keep this momentum going AND convince 3rd parties to move some of their better games onto the platform, then I think the Wii could easily last until the next generation of consoles.