Not that hard. See if my Nostradamusings come true.

End of 2007 worldwide sales (sell-through only)

XBox 360 = within 13 Million range (may near 14 million but will not cross the threshhold)

PS3 = within 7 Million range (being optimistic here)

Wii = AT LEAST 20 Million (*gasp* did he say that?)

End of 2007 Marketshare percentages (console only)

XBox 360 = approx. 32.5% (depending on placement within 13 Mil range)

PS3 = approx. 17.5% (depending on placement within/without 7 mil range)

Wii = approx. 50% (depending on how far past 20 Mill mark they go)

*Wii will catch and surpass the XBox 360 in worldwide sell-throughs within the month of July 2007

*Wii will catch the XBox 360 in the whole Americas region (not solely USA) sell-throughs ALSO within the month of July 2007

*Metal Gear Solid 4 will NOT go to the PlayStation 3 to the shock of the gaming world

*PS3 will not see life beyond the year 2009

*Wii will go on to surpass the sales of the PS2 to become the greatest selling console of all time

*DS will go on to surpass the sales of the GameBoys to become the greatest selling handheld of all time

*XBox 360 will never get a decent foothold in Japan (Duh!)

*Gameplayers will always fall into the trap of worshipping the power and specs of a gamemachine rather than the engagement of the player through a fun experience (Duh!)

*Microsoft's and Sony's debts incurred as a result of this 7th generation fight will give them second thoughts about continuing in the videogame field

*One of Nintendo's competitors will drop out of the gaming business at the end of this generation to the shock of the gaming world

Just a few that came off the top of my head. Let's see how right I am.

John Lucas 

Ouch, I don't know about that one. Sony backs the PS3 and with the amount invested, the losses outstanding, and the bets hedged on it (both the games division and Blu-Ray), I somehow think it will last longer than the 3DO, as it also had a 3-year lifespan.

Any reasons why for your pessimism? Just want to know. 

Man seriously I hate how this board doesn't allow Firefox users to snip out all those extraneous quote trails! Internet Explorer is a distant memory for me now ever since I got hipped to Firefox.

What you said right there is basically the reason why PS3 won't make it out of the year 2009. Too much investment, too little returns. And they are losing their hold on the console market with each passing day. Their dominance of the past decade didn't yield them proportional returns. Even Sony fan Hus was shocked by that.

The greatest selling system of all time and it only made 2 billion profit??? A lot of expenditure for little payout. In sheer dominance they were *just* able to make it worth their while. In drought they will not be so fortunate. This company cannot survive as an underdog. And Microsoft being in this business will continue to pressurize Sony as XBox 360's headstart allows them to siphon away all of Sony's potential customers. They will continue to sucker Sony into this financial game of chicken until Sony spends themselves out of the business. Microsoft can play the lossleading game better than Sony can because they got more loss to lose. Microsoft is trying to replace Sony in the worst possible way. They want them out of this field first so as not to encroach on MS's territory and so they can be better able to leverage this videogame strategy into their corporate diversification.

If MS wasn't here even Sony's mistakes wouldn't necessarily doom them just severely hurt them. Microsoft on top of all the rest makes it fatal. Just my take on it.

Oh & the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD battle is ultimately irrelevant. It will at best be an enthusiast/connoisseur format whoever wins that. People are not gonna toss out their just acquired DVD collections overnight just to buy 'em all back in the new more expensive format. Not to mention the DRM backlash. And some left field format in the near future may render both of those formats obsolete anyhow.

The switch from VHS to DVD had a lot of practical points; the case is just not the same for this sudden format shift proposal. 

John Lucas

The simExchange site is pretty cool.

If anyone is participating there it looks like there is some oppurtunity to on the PS3 futures for April NPD. The "market" is currently predicting 148K PS3's, while March's numbers were only 130K for a 5 week month and vgcharts new weekly's are showing PS3 slipping below 20K/week. 20K x 4 ~ 80K.

Anyway, it's a pretty fun way to see how your predictions turn out.

@Heading 1: Word.

True true, a lot of spending to reap 2B, but in any case, Sony did reap those profits!

I don't have any stats on 3DO's finances back then, but I think they weren't in nearly as good shape as Sony is in (not that I am suggesting they are in good shape, but that they are in good shape compared to the 3DO back then). I can see your point, but I still think that 3 years is a bit short. Oh, well, time will tell!

It will be interesting to see if the Malstrom/Lucas prophecy of Microsoft outspending Sony the financial game pans out...

Man there are some ignorant people posting here. Anyone who says the PS3 won't make it beyond 2009 simply doesn't know what he or she is talking about. You are the typical Sony hater that doesn't understand the market at all. Now I don't claim to be an expert, but I know enough to say that console cycles don't get decided this early. You make it seem like the 360 is taking over the world, when even in it's best market, the US, it gets beat by the PS2 on a monthly basis. In Europe the 360 is underperforming, and it's still irrelevent in Japan. The 360 is doing better than the PS3 right now, but not by enough that's it's building anything near an insurmountable lead. And Sony's brand name image in the gaming industry still kill that of Microsoft's. The 360 is selling because it's the only option now for that hardcore gamer that wants great graphics and actually wants more than 1 or 2 games worth buying. Once the PS3 gets some games the brand name of Sony will really start to kick in. I'm not going to say it's inevitable that the PS3 will overtake the 360 worldwide, but I still think that's what probably will happen.

I think even worst-case for the PS3, games support for it would dwindle late in its life to almost nil much like the GC, but the console will still be around for awhile.  Neither 360 or PS3 are really catching fire which indicates maybe people just aren't ready enough for HD gaming to pay such a premium for it.  In 2-3 years one or the other could take off, or the Wii could've already locked down the entire gen so hard that it'll take until the next-gen for the HD gaming market to flourish.

I'm sorry John Lucas, I don't agree with you at all, (I can't see anything wrong with quotes on firefox) you seem to estimate that the PS3 will simply get worse and worse. even if MGS 4 does not come out on PS3, that will not mean the failure of PS3, there are plenty of other great Ps3 games out there that will push sales.

A lot can happen in 2 years.

Ask Sega in 1999.

Ask Atari in 1982.

Don't be so sure that the once invincible can't become as vulnerable as newborn kittens.

Ask Nintendo in 1995.

John Lucas 

Sony can't afford to replace the PS3 in 2009. And it's still got enough support to make sure it has a reasonable user base. Remember that even third place consoles get some support (since there are less games to compete with, you generally are more likely to sell to a specific user)

Don't worry about the PS3 dying that quickly, The PS3 isn't going well and it's highly unlikely to win this generation but it will still perform and will die as soon as Sony releases a PS4 (which they will no way do in 2009).