So, I have always been a fan of predicting and watching the performance of games :), I Love Wednesdays because of the Media Create weekly sales charts, its fun for me seeing how my favorite system perform in that week, and how many games were on the top 20 and who is #1!

So I have decided making this thread, so I am asking you guys to predict the lifetime sales for the 3DS biggest sellers! (which we can infer from the DS list and the announcements like Monster Hunter 4, which we know about)

First of all, lets see which games are the best sellers of some portable systems!

Nintendo DS (152.15 millions of units sold Worlwide according to our loved Vgchartz)

As we can see Pokemon is the franchise with the most titles on the top 20 ( 5 in total/a spinoff, the Generations IV and V of the mainline story, a remake and an enhaced third version). We have 3 Brain games; a bunch (5 games) of our favorite plumber; 2 Mario platformers (a 2d Mario, the 3d Mario remake of N64), 1 Mario Kart, 1 Mario Party and 1 Mario & Sonic minigame collection. 1 Dragon Quest Mainline title, 1 Zelda original title, 1 Lego, 1 Cooking Mama, 1 Animal Crossing, 1 Nintendog and 1 Layton.

17 nintendo IPs and 3 3rd Party IPs.

Nintendo 3DS (18.2 millions of units sold Worlwide according to our loved Vgchartz)

We have 1 Mario 3d Platformer, 1 Mario Kart, 1 Mario & Sonic minigame collection, 1 Zelda Remake, 1 Nintendogs, 1 Monster Hunter, 1 Kid Icarus, 1 Fire Emblem, 1 Pokemon Spinoff, 1 Street Figther port, 1 Ridge racer, 1 Super Monkey Ball ,1 Starfox remake, 1 Lego, 1 Dragon Quest remake,1 Rayman remake, 1 Pilot Wings, 1 Sonic platformer and 1 Inazuma Eleven.

11 3rd Party developers and 9 Nintendo games.

All lot of conclusions can be made with this information.

1) DS was a gigantic success, something that the 3DS wii probably not match at all (is the second biggest gaming system seller, ever). Asking the 3DS to sell that much its pretty much impossible right now with all the shitty economy we have now, the competition it has with smartphones and tablets.

So-----------------------------> We wont have as many million sellers on the 3DS, and the numbers will be much smaller for every game if we compare it to the DS titles. New Super Mario Bros 2 wont sell 28 millions, I predict it will sell between 15-20 millions, and will be the 3DS biggest seller. Mario Kart 7 and Mario 3D land seem to be the biggest evergree, titles for the 3DS, I suspect they will keep selling for a long time (specially Mario Kart 7, being an online multiplayer game with infinite replay value) so I think Mario Kart 7 will sell between 13-16 millions for the former and 8-12 millions for the latter; they will be in the top 5 for the system (all 3 games will probably get bundled with the system). We will have Pokemon games, and they will be huge (but not as big as NSMB2, nor as big as they were on the DS) we will see Gen VI which will be the biggest 3DS pokemon game, selling between 10-13 millions, the remix of Gen VI which will sell between 4-6 millions, the remake of one of the 1st generations (probably ruby/saphire, but maybe gen 1 again, who knows), which will sell between 6-9 millions (we will probably not gen another gen for the system, the development for these games will be longer because of the changes Gamefreak will add to the game cause of the new powerful Hardware, they have to figure out if they are going 2D or 3D or both, changing mechanics, adding AR stuff, etc etc). We have a confirmation of 2 Zelda games coming for the system (probably the only zeldas for the 3DS in its lifetime besides OoT), a new game, and a remake of maybe Majoras Mask or Zelda A link to the past. I suspect OoT will sell between 3-4, The original 4-5.5 and the Remake between 4-5.

2)Games like Nintendogs and the Brain games will not be that big because people already experience those games a million times already with all the copycats on the DS, PSP, smartphones and tablets. These "Touchgeneration" titles are so simple, that practically you can find similar experiences everywhere else.

So----------------------------->Probably the new Brain game (Oni tore) will sell a LOT less than its predecesors, specially in America and Europe, it will probably sell less than Brain Age Academy, something between 3-5 millions seem reasonable. As for Nintendogs, its the first proof of what I already said, it has sold 10 times less than its predecessor and it probably wont even reach 10 millions (it has a Tiny opportunity if its bundle with the system, later in its life) I think  it will sell something like 5-8 millions. Another thing I would like to add is that games like Mario & Sonic and Cooking Mama will not be that big anymore, they will not be in the top 20, and will probably sell poorly, <750,000.

3) Nintendo will relly more on 3rd party publishers. The Nintendo DS gained the confidence of 3rd party developers (specially Eastern developers), now that they have its succesor, which is tracking to be a big seller (I predict that the 3DSwill sell very close to the GBA and the PSP, maybe a little bit more, something between 70-90 millions semm aproppiate) and it has a robust online experience and great graphics, they will get full support. The direct competition of the 3DS is the PS Vita, which is selling poorly (only 2.3 millions, I predict numbers between 30-45 millions at the MAX) all around (specially Japan, the country which used to have its biggest fanbase and support; it was dead here in America and Europe, specially on the software side); so I predict a lot of the big developers jumping ship, and make most of their handheld games for the 3DS.

So-----------------------------> We will see a new mainline Dragon Quest exclusivly for the 3DS (DQ XI) probably by the year 2014-2015, SE has been really supportive for the system, and DQ its practically a Nintendo exclusive now it will probably sell something between 2.5-4.5 millions, and we could see some others DQ remakes which will sell between 800, 000- 1.5 million and DQ jokers games which will probably sell the same. Capcom will bring Monster Hunter 4 for the system, I suspect it will sell between 2.5-5 millions, and probably Capcom will bring another one for the system wich will sell better than this, between 4-6.5 millions.

So those are my predictions :), I hope you guys like them and participate in this thread :D!

lol yeah, i just wanted you to give a prediction of the hot 3DS titles that we are going to get :D

Personally, I think software sales will start to skyrocket once the XL releases, and hardware sales will accelerate somewhere between 2013~2014 and then stabilize for about a year or two and then decrease in its final years. About an exact number, maybe 100~150m? The economy might start to get better within these years as well, and we don't know for sure how long this gen of handheld will last so it's a hard guess.

Nintendo will make a 3DS with built in second circle pad and I will be disappointed.

3DS will top out at 90 million lifetime, and that is being fairly generous. Not saying 90 million is bad, but nowhere near DS-level sales. It's selling at a clip of 8-9 million per year, so I'm not seeing the same explosive growth curve the DS had with Nintendogs/ Brain Age/ the very first NSMB, etc.

Again, 90 million is very, very successful. It means the system has reached a base beyond just the hardcore franchise fans.  Iwata himself has said that fans of certain franchises are buying franchise sequels for 3DS who have been out of the handheld market for a decade or more.  But, once again, it's not going to appeal to complete non-gamers who wanted to play Sudoku, Brain Age, or Nintendogs. Those fans can get free casual experiences on their giant-screened HD smartphones.

100-120 million

Wait... what's that I see? A 3D Mario outselling a 2D Mario?! Blasphemy!!

Exactly :), the 3DS will be REALLY succesful, just not DS levels succesful. I think it will perform better than this guy , but probably worst than this guy .

I will be happy, and we will get a lot of support from the big guys :D! (probably the underwhelming performance of the Vita will aid the 3DS tremendously.

i think we are going to see a new Nintendo hheld sooner than we all believe
that will kill 3DS sales tremendously
so i would say 80m max.

I don't think they would release a new handheld that soon as it would piss a lot of people off.