Well the reason the PS3 has a good chance for a comeback is because it's the price and lack of quality software that's holding it back right now. I see the PS3 doing better in 2008 than it does in 2007, and better in 2009 than it does in 2008. Once the amazing exclusives come and once the price drops come you'll see noticible bounces as the Sony brand name remains extremely strong. Also if Blue Ray starts to win we will not really see the PS3 sales effect from that until 2008 or later. Whether the PS3 ends in first or last in worldwide sales I think most can agree that launches don't detirmine ultimate success. The PSP had a better launch than the DS. The N64 absolutely killed the PS1 launch. What did those really mean in retrospect? Not that much.

davygee said: Darc Requiem said: Well actually my numbers are off. I just recalculated them. I didn't use enough months. There are 20 months until the end of 2008 and 32 months until the end of 2009. That being the case. The PS3 needs to outsell the 360 by 326,000 units a month and the Wii by 177,000 units a month to equal each consoles sales by 2008. As for the end of 2009, the PS3 needs to outsell the 360 by 204,000 units a month and the Wii by 110,000 units a month. I think the PS3 will be in 2nd position by the end of 2008 and will be pushing for first by the end of 2009 or during 2010. Rough workings out based on my opinion are: End of 2007 - Wii: 16m, 360: 15m, PS3: 10m  End of 2008 - Wii: 26m, 360: 19m, PS3: 22m End of 2009 - Wii: 31m, 360: 21m, PS3: 30m

Personally, I think you're being far too optimistic on sales of the PS3 and far too pesimistic on the sales of the Wii; in fact I can't recall a single system seeing their sales reduced to 2/3 of their first year sale in their second year, and then again being reduced to 1/2 of those sales in the third year. Typically sales follow a pattern in that they are similar to the previous year (possibly as low as 80%) or better than the previous year. Using 16 Million as the estimate for 2007, the lowest I would expect the Wii to be at the end of 2008 would be 28 Million, followed by 37 Million at the end of 2009; a more reasonable estimate would probably be in the 40 Million to 50 Million range.

windbane said: Darc Requiem said: Windbane, you are forgetting about the PC Engine/TG-16. The SNES had at least two competitors. The TG-16 was leading in Japan before the SNES took over and out paced the Mega Drive. Hell if it weren't for horrible management in the states, who knows what the TG-16 could have done. That is another topic however. Oh, I'm sorry, I only deal with systems that matter. If you want to throw that in, I'll raise you cell phone gaming in today's market. What about flash games? Geez.

I'm sorry well I'm dealing in fact. The PC-Engine/TG-16 was the number 1 fourth generation console in Japan until the Super Famicom came along and still ended up second place over all. During the 3rd generation, there were two major markets. The US and Japan. Finishing second place in one those major markets should matter. Spawning moderately successful add ons such as the PC-Engine CD and Turb Duo constitute mattering. I said PC-Engine. Not PC-FX.

shams said:   I have a friend working on PS3 engine tech (TeamBondi, working on L.A Noire). He was not only saying that it is an immense amount of work to write a *proper* engine for the PS3, he was also saying how disapointed he was in the overall architecture. Coding for the SPU's is much harder than for the 360's multiple cores (lots of reasons).

 Yes, I agree. I am a Software Developer myself and due to a crazy idea of someone I even had to write some software on the PS-3, although I am not working in the games industry...

While the PS-3 is hardly a bad console its SPUs are a headache, mainly because they only like a special kind of software, otherwise they get very slow. While it would be possible to use at least some of their power for nornmal programs , real approaches will be much more limited, mainly for costs and debugging reasons.

It isn't mainly the hardwarer itself, but its hardware demands a special way of programming, but this way contradicts the way how normal programs or games are really developed. But the normal development style can't be changed for the PS-3 because it would need to much money and time. It is easier to do some basic optimization on the Xbox 360 because you can group by function, not by the kind of algorithm, that will be used.

HappySqurriel said: Personally, I think you're being far too optimistic on sales of the PS3 and far too pesimistic on the sales of the Wii; in fact I can't recall a single system seeing their sales reduced to 2/3 of their first year sale in their second year, and then again being reduced to 1/2 of those sales in the third year. Typically sales follow a pattern in that they are similar to the previous year (possibly as low as 80%) or better than the previous year. Using 16 Million as the estimate for 2007, the lowest I would expect the Wii to be at the end of 2008 would be 28 Million, followed by 37 Million at the end of 2009; a more reasonable estimate would probably be in the 40 Million to 50 Million range.

I expect sales of the Wii to go down as I feel the lifespan of the Wii will be approx. 3-4 years and with the PS3 taking off over the longerterm.

Just my opinion mind. 

HappySqurriel said: davygee said: Darc Requiem said: Well actually my numbers are off. I just recalculated them. I didn't use enough months. There are 20 months until the end of 2008 and 32 months until the end of 2009. That being the case. The PS3 needs to outsell the 360 by 326,000 units a month and the Wii by 177,000 units a month to equal each consoles sales by 2008. As for the end of 2009, the PS3 needs to outsell the 360 by 204,000 units a month and the Wii by 110,000 units a month. I think the PS3 will be in 2nd position by the end of 2008 and will be pushing for first by the end of 2009 or during 2010. Rough workings out based on my opinion are: End of 2007 - Wii: 16m, 360: 15m, PS3: 10m End of 2008 - Wii: 26m, 360: 19m, PS3: 22m End of 2009 - Wii: 31m, 360: 21m, PS3: 30m Personally, I think you're being far too optimistic on sales of the PS3 and far too pesimistic on the sales of the Wii; in fact I can't recall a single system seeing their sales reduced to 2/3 of their first year sale in their second year, and then again being reduced to 1/2 of those sales in the third year. Typically sales follow a pattern in that they are similar to the previous year (possibly as low as 80%) or better than the previous year. Using 16 Million as the estimate for 2007, the lowest I would expect the Wii to be at the end of 2008 would be 28 Million, followed by 37 Million at the end of 2009; a more reasonable estimate would probably be in the 40 Million to 50 Million range.

 and 360 is only getting 4mil next year and 2mil the year after that? FAT CHANCE it's getting GTAIV...

OriGin said: and 360 is only getting 4mil next year and 2mil the year after that? FAT CHANCE it's getting GTAIV..

 Well how many 360's have been sold this year alone.  We are 4 months into the year and the sales have slowly down dramatically.  They are yet to break the 10m units sold barrier when they were claiming they had sold 10m by the end of 2006.  MS have reduced their predications and have now stated that they intend for 12m units sold by the end of June 2007, this is down some 3m from their initial prediction of 15m.  Maybe I'm allowing for a bigger growth this year than what will happen.  I reckon 360 sales will go up to 15m by the end of this year, which would have seen around 6-7m units sold this year.  4m next year isn't that ridiculous after all.

Well I honestly, I believe they reduced their projection because they are trying to clear out inventory. I'm expecting a significant price drop this year for the 360. Probably around the time they switch to the 65nm chipset. Thats the wildcard as far as all console sales go this year IMO. The 360 price drop. Its going to happen, its just a matter of when. When it does occur there will be a domino effect of some sort.

Darc Requiem said: Well I honestly, I believe they reduced their projection because they are trying to clear out inventory. I'm expecting a significant price drop this year for the 360. Probably around the time they switch to the 65nm chipset. Thats the wildcard as far as all console sales go this year IMO. The 360 price drop. Its going to happen, its just a matter of when. When it does occur there will be a domino effect of some sort.

They will probably want to get shot of the Core Systems as most people want the hard drive, and if they reduce the Pro (Premium) System by a significant amount i.e. $100 to say $299, then this would pose a serious problem for the PS3.  At most I can see only a $100-$150 reduction by Sony of the PS3 by the end of the year, which would bring the price down to $450-$500 which although would be good news for people wanting a PS3 but would still be nearly double what the 360 could be.

We will see who reduces their costs first. 

I would be very surprised if the PS3 raced ahead of the Wii in 2008 or even 2009. This belief the great lineup of games will save the system is a bit misplaced I think. It reminds of Nintendo saying they would sell 50 million GameCubes once Zelda and Mario Kart joined Smash Bros., Mario Sunshine, and Metroid Prime. Whether the PS3 will even have a strong lineup of games will be decided this year.

If it doesn't start approaching the 360 (forget about the Wii) by the end of the year its 2009 3rd Party games will largely disappear. Except for multiplatform of course, but few are going to opt for a $560-660 GTA IV when they can get a $360-460 GTA IV. Sony's problem is that there are just not enough people out there who can afford a $600 video game system. By the time the PS3 gets to a price most people can afford (below $300) we'll be playing GTA V, FF XIV, RE 6, MGS 5, DQ X, etc. on the Wii primarily so it won't matter.

There's a special reason on the SNES came from so far behind, Nintendo had the 3rd party devs locked up, illegally as it turned out. Sony with its arrogance may have thought that it had 3rd party devs locked up, but it doesn't as we're seeing all too often these days. Unlike Sony fanboys they won't wait around until 2009 to see if the PS3 can become the first too expensive video game console to win.