Why does anybody take these kind of threads serious? -_-

Making a prediction about consoles that you know very little about on a heavily biased site will surely be accurate.....

It pretty much depends if the rumors of the next Xbox being also a cable box come to fruition and whether to make strategic alliances in the US with Cable providers. If they do that the Xbox could "win" things on number of units "sold" very easily. If not I see this generation being a lot smaller than last gen with all three in the 70 million area. Not that the market "shrunk" I just think we will not see the number being inflated by RROD/YROD type of incident not that there will not be any bricked systems just that they will be a lot smaller instances. Because with those I think the unit that "sold" for each company would be significantly lower this gen. And I think the poor economy will play a part in keeping the numbers this gen low also.

But if Microsoft does like those rumor suggest the next Xbox could easily sell 200+ million on virtue of being installed as a cable box with "gaming features", but I doubt it will have little impact on the software side of things.

It should be a relatively close gen. Wii U has a headstart, 1st party games and most likely will be the cheapest but Xbox and PS4 will have the core croud, more multimedia features and better 3rd party support. I think Wii U will have a similar sales curve as Wii but with yearly sales more like PS360. Xbox and PS4 could very well sell similar to there predececors but with PS4 selling slightly better than Xbox due to not losing a uear headstart and will likely be priced around the same and both will probably have a longer life than Wii U. Obviously aomething could happen to give one a huge lead over the others or one mess up big time and be a distant third but im guessing we will see a close contested generation.

they'll be pretty even at launch I'd wager

You fail to see the logic because you fail to see the commercial success that the Wii was to non-gamers. Look at the bundled game sales and you will find out why they were so high. Outside of that the other first party exclusives were propped up by Nintendo faithful on games like DKC Returns, Super Smash, Just Dance and other games of that ilk. Nintendo first party sells whether it has 100 million consoles sold or 22 million. This is my point. 

You expect this console gen to grow?

Gotta be kidding dude.

I think xbox fans are going to be in for a big surprise. I know it's my group of friends, but they have all deiced to get the ps4 over the next box. that is 6 people i know personally switching sides. I think MS has just pushed their customers to much, Flip flopping between core and casual, RROD, MS points, Paid online accesses and peripherals. There is only so much you can Nickle and dime your customers before they start looking some where else. Any ground they have gained is going to be lost at the start of the new gen. Besides, America will switch sides in a heart beat.

your logic is flawless, the most powerful and praised console in the internets is the winner.

PS vita says hi ;)

Yeah I don't wanna say this is a trend though as some people have commited to MS in America already and they haven't even announced the thing yet.  Weird.  I don't know how a company can keep or build a good reputation after the last 3 years but it's happened.  Anywho I don't see Xbox slipping below 50m next gen simply because of the amount of people who will want to transfer their stuff from 360.  That isn't everyone though (as in some won't care) and people are more willing to switch than most seem to think.  The slate is wiped clean each gen (why people who say PS3 just survived on brand name are wrong I think).