Well this is an awkward thread. Opinions are opinions and predictions mirror these. Just because I don't believe either the PS3 or 360 will pass the Wii (or hit 95mil, even), doesn't mean that another person is "wrong" for thinking otherwise.

The only person who we know is wrong here is Pachter.

wow i had to scan thruogh an entire thread to find a post that i could actually reply to.

anyways just to put things into perspective. the PS3 is at around 77 million now atleast, sony forcasts a 10 million PS3's sold this year which seems rather reasonable with an in inevitable price cut. meaning at the end of next FY it would be around 87 million. do you think sales would just drop to hard that it wouldnt even sell 8 million in the rest of its life time?

also to put into consideration. sales in the USA dropped last year pretty good but the overall sales figure of the ps3 hasnt been effected much by that drop, indicating that sales in other, probably emerging countries have grown, which really is important for a console at the end of its life. 

Well I find it very hard to believe it'll sell 10mil this year, closer to 8mil. So that'd put it at 85mil. But then it'll be selling much lower than it is now, due to the PS4 being out and people moving on to next generations, so drops of over 50% YoY would not be particularly unexpected. So 89mil by the end of 2014, let's say. Then that's another 6mil to spread over a couple more years before production stops, so the mid-90s seems like the most likely ending place for the PS3. 

For comparison, the Wii will hit 102mil and the 360 90mil. 

i guess the only way we can find out is to wait and see. it will be hard to just guess these things. there are so many factors. will a price cut increase sales? but by how much? will the ps4 and 720 kill off sales of the ps360? to what degree? will software sell systems now? like the last of us, will ps3 owners now buy it or will people buy a ps3 to buy it? will AC/battlefield/CoD manage to move much units this year? how long will third parties support the system? its all up in the air, and we can only talk about possibilites. but, is there a possibility that the PS3 might reach 95 million? i believe so, could it outsell the Wii? i believe it might. but im not saying it will or it wont. 

Yeah, there's far too many unknowns to make an accurate guess, but I'd rather predict low and be surprised than predict high, be ridiculed and then be wrong.

who dares ridicule you?!! notify me by their names and i will have them beheaded at once!

No, no-one is at the moment. Don't worry

of course a wii only owner would say that. xbox live, PSN and the hardware of PS3/360 have moved the industry forward! nintendo may have bought motion gaming but look at motion gaming now.. nobody really cares about it. oh but the wii sold like crazy and is nearing 100m... and what? 100m has already been done 13 fucking years ago with the PS1 and than that was blown away by PS2. you act like the wii sold 200m and broke records. the wii is also one of them main reasons why nintendo are struggling with the wii u right now, its all just gone wrong for ninty.

The "race already finished" comments are kind of dumb. Why does the Wii have the right to decide when the race is over? Just because the Wii is stopping doesn't mean that the race is over. I agree that ps3 passing the Wii years from now won't be that significant of a win, it's still a win though. Anyway I don't think that the ps3 can do it.

The Wii doesn't, the release date of the other two next gen consoles does :P