johnlucas on 09 September 2007

What does that number stand for?

Hahaha. Why it signifies the bare minimum sales total for your favorite and mine...the Wii.

Two Hundred and Forty Million will be the lowest possible amount of sales for the Wii's lifetime. The LOWEST amount.

In the PS2's impressive 7 year (going on 8 year) lifetime it has sold over the 120,000,000 mark making it the largest selling home console of all time besting its 100,000,000+ record selling predecessor the PS1.

Sony captivated new audiences and expanded the reach of videogaming resulting in the increased figures.

But the Wii is far beyond the PlayStations in its ability to reach new audiences.

What you have seen in 2007 is absolutely NOTHING compared to what you WILL see in the next coming years. Believe it or not this is the warm up period. This rapidly selling system which has captivated your imaginations has only begun to mesmerize.

Wii Fit is the tip of the iceberg in what Wii is aiming for to vastly expand videogaming's reach. Nintendo is rewriting the industry bible that they themselves have authored over 2 decades ago. The Wii won't just be a videogame system, it will be more a common entertainment appliance like a DVD player or a stereo. The naming of the system makes it possible. The word "Wii" is simply endlessly accessible and because of this it will find its way into homes and other buildings with an ease you will not believe.

As the 3rd party shifts in full to Wii, the competition will lose a great advantage as Nintendo begins absorbing their audience. Reggie Fils-Aime's marketing talk about "push-pull" is no corporate BS. Nintendo is PUSHING the boundaries of videogaming creatively, business-wise, and demographically while PULLING the creative resources, business, demographics from its competition. It's like a rapidly expanding Black Hole or shall we say Blue Hole when looking at the system's trademark glowing light.

2008 will show you a year where Wii seals its dominance in regions where some viable competition still exists like in Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and the other PALs and yes here in the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Some Wii-Luddites will slowly drop their protests and join the pearl white/electric blue attack finally realizing what matters in this pastime. New styles of games that could only come about because of the Wii will alert the doubters and attitudes will soften. The diehards will always remain but their herd will thin out more and more as time goes on. Stories of "I finally went out and bought a Wii" will become more commonplace and the FUD of "Wiis collecting dust" will be laughed out of forums internet-wide as more and more people realize how Wii proved its promise (I love using that line).

Wii will realize Nintendo's original vision for its second home console the Famicom/NES. Yes, Wii is the fully realized implementation of the Family Computer. And THIS is why 240,000,000 is only the entry point. The competition as time goes on will be made irrelevant though they will always have some supporters. But their moves will have no effect on the aims Nintendo set forth for its system. PS3 will sadly succumb to XBox 360 taking its spot as the refuge for the Wii-Luddites and graphic *ahem* "ladies of the night". And XBox 360 will be left with a marketshare resembling their last system in the very end. They will function as the smaller alternative as Wii takes over the regions where it is weakest and strengthens its power where XBox 360 is strongest.

The WiiDS Phenomenon has only begun and I cannot tell you the maximum point of how much Wii will sell. The number could boggle the mind.

But I will tell you the minimum point: 240,000,000. Niles Standish says take the PS2 and DOUBLE It!

That's a guaran-DAMN-tee. Bet on it.

John Luca

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I'm just bringing back something i remember quiet clearly. Bring it back up to see how things fair over the years.

The massive crase of the Wii when it first come out, and how well the Ps2 kept selling for all those years. I also noticed that hes been posting recently very keen to see what it makes of how everything when't. Something i'd like to say is i dont remember itsbeing at 240 million i was thinking it was something closer to 150 million but none the less.

If this is relevant feel free to lock it.

Who was around it see this when it first come out and how much it was flamed?

Ah I remember that guy.

While I'll admit my predictions for the Wii were well wrong (I expected sales larger than the PS2 back then I think) there were not many who were as crazy with their predictions as him.

I remember JL's ridiculous predictions. He actually had quite a few followers. I was always one of those who spoke against him, and ours was also a fairly large group. Then there were those who were simply entertained by his posts and persona online.
Come to think of it, he was entertaining and was actually a pretty good poster and I'm fairly certain he drew in some people to the boards to witness his antics.

There's another one as well, the guy who calls himself Avinash. They both made some incredibly far fetched predictions and also both disappeared right around the time the Wii started going down yoy every week. A lot of users tried to take over the crown and pushed the same agenda onwards, "It will recover, wait for colors, price cut, game A, game B, massive 3rd party support" etc but no one had the same fervor as JL.

In hindsight, seeing the arguments and predictions made for the Wii, one can clearly observe that all three main camps have been equally deluded and wrong this generation. One fell on it's ass, one simply broke and one spoke too soon. Let's just hope everyone learned something from the 7th generation.
Also, let's hope JL returns to the forums. I actually mean that.

Ah, good old John Lucas.

I wonder whatever happened to him?

@mummelmann

Good to see your still around.

I remember the massive flame wars about how well everything would do, its so interesting to see how well the DS stood up, maybe his prediction should have been about the DS not Wii. Also asks the question would he have been so far off if they kept coming with out games, not just stopped supporting it.

I think the DS has shut the most folks up this gen. That thing MOVED!!

I grimace at the thought of my first posts in here, I was very different back then. I think my time on Vgchartz has taught me a lot. Glad to see you're still around as well, you need to post more!

It was a different time back then, when Wii had a lot more promise, sales were absolutely through the roof, the console was essentially sold out in America for like two years from the crazy demand, and all the third parties were supposed to jump on board. Still, even for the context of the time, it was a pretty absurd prediction. Though not much more absurd than the belief that the HD consoles can still outsell the Wii, which seems to be a surprisingly somewhat common belief held here..

Personaly at the time, I felt reaching the PS2 sales, or maybe sliiightly more, was the absolute maximum Wii could possibly reach, though that was under the logical assumption that the Wii would eventually earn PS2-like support, which of course we all know never happened.

Being the pessimist I am, my REALISTIC prediction for Wii sales, even when it was riding its highest high, was pretty far to the opposite end of the spectrum from this guy's. While I love Nintendo and wanted them to do well, I would have been surprised/happy if the Wii simply passed the NES in sales, and frankly I still am. After all, I grew up in the dark ages of Nintendo gaming for much of my life and was used to nothing better. So anything greater than the NES sales to me was just a bonus. Now we're talking about the Wii almost certainly passing the 100 million PS1, which still shocks me to this day. That will certainly be a nice milestone, though it sadly will never reach the PS2. Oh well, maybe when Nintendo reloads with the Wii U :/

They don't make em like that anymore.

Hopefully we'll get some committed crazy people before the new console releases.

I'm sure you'll do just fine :)

I used to think John Luca had magical powers to predict the future.....but I've never seen that post. Now that was just insane!