It's entirely possible that Nintendo did make the right decision with Wii, as it will keep the system profitable regardless of any obstacles it may face. I just don't believe it will win them any favors from third parties.

Have you looked on the new weekly charts from USA? Rayman had passed 440k now, tiger passed 150k. 3rd parties is selling in USA now, why shouldn't they support Wii? You are going in a circel and refuse to look at the sales, so far it seems that 3rd party is having a great time on Wii in USA so why shouldn't they it?

Believing that Sony will be the closest to hit the original levels is based on historical data. Believing Nintendo can is unproven. It's entirely possible Wii could shock the world and hit 100 million, but it's not something we're going to be able to judge until there's at least another year's worth of data.

What historical data does we have that a system that is the least selling system during a simultanious launch will win?

What Nintendo's really got going for it is positive buzz, but that relates primarily to the negative buzz currently surrounding Sony.

The positve buzz started with the showing of the Wiimote, that buzz lead to that Wii sold more than PS3.

It's much easier to make money off a PS3 to 360 port than it is to make money releasing a game on just Wii. I believe THQ for instance is heading in the direction of the rest of the industry. Give Nintendo your Hot Wheels and Nickelodeon licenses, along with some multiplatform games like WWE, and reserve your next generation $20 million games for the other two.

Wrong it is cheaper to devlope for Wii, therfore you can make more money on it.

I get Nintendo's strategy. Save (or make) a buck now, do what's in your own best interests regardless of how it may affect others, and worry about the consequences later. See also: the last 20 years.

Affact others? Yes I do think that ubisoft is very sad for their 440k + rayman for the moment.

If Nintendo could hit Japan DS levels worldwide with Wii, I'm not even convinced then it's the wisest platform to start putting blockbuster games on. Even in that scenario, where third parties are starting to come into their own a bit and release successful games, Nintendo still owns 3/4 of the sofware market. However, that level of dominance would probably be what's needed.

Have you looked on 3rd party sales on the DS at all? Does it matter if Nintendo has 3/4 of the market if you are making tons of money? There is a number of great selling 3rd party games on DS, and on Wii too for the moment. Or let me state it like this I think 3rd party devs on PS3 would be very happy if Resistance on PS3 had sold the same amount as Zelda on Wii. That would mean that their would be a bigger market that you could take.

Then the next question how many million of PS3 is needed for it to be a good choice for 3rd party games?

Star Fox used an extra on board FX chip to create the 3d and although DKC blew everyone away when it came out graphically, don't forget that the Genesis brought out Vectorman which pretty much did the same.

@erik Just like davygee said, Starwings graphics was made possible by extra chip, which raised SNES to 33 MHz (from just above 3). Nintendo was planning SNES to be just an improved version of NES, but since Sega made Mega Drive so powerful, Nintendo had to make more power to SNES, that what they originally planned. This could explain the odd design of SNES (late changes). Mega Drive had more raw power, but the co-processors in the SNES, made it more flexible and overall (maybe) more powerful.

Lifespan of the Wii The Wii is doing very well. But they attract a different gamer than PS3/360. Fanbase & Hardcore gamers 15m Kids 30m Non-gamers ??? 20m You choose a Wii or an PS3/360 There isn't any real competition for the Wii. I don't think the PS3 gloves will do. 65m A lifespan of 5 years for sure. They could last even longer. Because of there low-cost technology Wii price could drop to $59,- and compete verywell with a $149 PS3. But most of the gamers 150m base will choose for PS3/360 105m. The nextgen market will grow to at least 200m within 5 years. 50m 360 + 7 =57m 55m PS3 + 13 =68m 65m Wii + 30 =95m 7m&13m casual gamers 30m non-gamers

Compared to Wii's launch price of 249$/including Wii Sports compared to 299$/399$ for the X360 and 9/59$ for the PS3 and Wii games retailing for 35-50$ comapred to 50$-60$ for PS3-X360 games. I guess we can expect a 5 year life span for the Wii.

Should take the dev's a few years to fully tap out the potential of the console.

My guess if Nintendo's R&D is already working on Wii Too.

Better GFX,PHYSX and more precise controls. Expect an announcement by E3 2009.

Wow, a debate over whether the SNES or Genesis is more powerful, am I back in grade school? The Genesis was only more powerful in that it could have the CPU and GPU process seperate frames at the same time allowing for faster scrolling. In every other way the SNES was more powerful. It had more colors, more sprites, way better sound, more RAM, ability to do scaling and rotation (good ole Mode 7), could handle more planes, etc etc. All you have to do is look at the games to see which is more powerful, which is why I never understood how it was quesitoned in the first place. As for the Wii's lifespan, I don't see any reason why it won't be 5 years. HD penetration isn't even moving Bluray/HDDVD movies and movies are a much bigger interest for most people with HDTV. If they aren't even rushing out to buy HD movies why would they rush out to pay extra for HD games? What I could see being released in 2-3 years is a Wii Plus. With the regular Wii dropped to $100-150 I wouldn't be surprised is they release one with 4 GB onboard storage, companent cables, Wii Sports/Health/Music provided on storage, I'd say some type of movie playback but supporting either BluRay or HDDVD would mean supporting a rival so I don't know about that. I think the Wii breaking 80 million is pretty much a certainty, it's grabbed the casual gamer market the PS2 had and so that should be it's low end. The casual gamers are not going to a system over $250, the PS3 will only reach that at the end of this generation if it ever does and the Xbox won't reach it for years and it doesn't have any casual appeal. It should also sell well to hard core gamers since a $100-250 system isn't too much to add a diferent experience to their $400-600 systems. Indeed, if the PS3 and 360 split the hard core market while the Wii sell as a 2nd system to 60% of hard core gamers it would actually outsell the HD systems in their own primary market. The bigger question is how many non-gamers will keep coming and how long will they stay. Also we'll have to see how developing countries shape up. With it's much lower cost and also importantly it's much lower dev cost the Wii will be about the only system able to take advantage of those markets. If all those go the right way I could see 160 million sold being a possibility for the Wii. More realisticaly I'd say 120 million over 6 years.

They usually start right after the last system is launched (at least in theory and such if not actual design) so I wouldn't be surprised if they are working on the next Wii.  I think most resouces are going into the DS Advance (or whatever it's going to be called). The DS is over 2 years old so we should start hearing rumours and rumblings about the next one soon.

I'd like to add to this, Game cube was VASTLY superior to PS2 in every way processor video card ram everything. And Nintendo is pretty much built on questioning conventional wisdom, it just doesn't always work.

1st D-pad

1st Analog stick

1st Shoulder buttons(R/L)

1st 4 controller port console

1st Standard motion sensing control

that is ALL challenging convention wisdom. I'd also like to add most of them have become industry standards. Just because they're standards now, doesn't mean people didn't laugh at them then. They also tried many, less successful things, Virtual Boy(could have been good... but damn did something go wrong), releasing NES in America, R.O.B., Touch screen... etc.

I love the debates that rage on in these forums, both sides of the argument are actually pretty solid, but Shane unfortunately I don't personally give you the win because you are mis-informed about a few things. I really suggest you read that Blue Ocean article, it's quite something special. I don't think arguing that PS3 or Wii competing against each other is good or bad or better or worse, I don't think they are competing for each others market honestly... Don't forget the fact that if a game costs less on Wii then it can sell less to make the same amount of profit.

Albionus while I'm sure Nintendo is working on a DS successor, who is to say when its going to be released. The GBA was originally going to be launched in 1997 but the GBC was selling so well, Nintendo kept pushing back its debut.

As for the Genesis and SNES debate, I can't believe this is still going on. The Genesis did have a faster CPU. Thats about it. The SNES had superior graphics and sound. Look up the specs. Not only was the SNES able to display 4 times the color and render in a higher resolution, it could to display more sprites on screen and larger sprites as well.

EDIT: I don't know how I missed Albionus' post about the SNES/Genesis debate. He did a better job explaining the situation than I.