I feel this gen will end as follows:

In Ranks:

1. Nintendo Wii --180 Million--- Ninty back on top with the Wii

2. Sony Playstation 3 --80 Million---Some people may say a bit too high but this will come due a VERY LONg lifespan

3. Microsoft Xbox 360 --40 million---No comments

 Tech doesn't denote lifespan, games does, PS3 will not have a long lifespan due to its low games support, it will last only about as long as the 360

Actually you are incorrect, NES was less powerful than the gaming PC's it launched against, remember, gaming was not dead, it had merely moved to PC's SNES was less powerful than the NEO GEO 

 And historically its the different console the one that Zigs when other's zag that wins

Will Nintendo increase production once they are producing 1,8mln a month 21,6 mln a year? 216mln lifetime? After 4/5 years production will be cut in half or less. That would make 150-180mln max. Than again I don''t think Nintendo can keep up momentum, when 360 and PS3 drop in mass market appeal $199. Remember 190mln like gaming as it was last generation. 360/PS3 is an evolution of last generation. The Wii isn't.

The NES was technologically outclassed by the Master System as well, and was inferior to the 7800 in some ways.

That, and I highly believe that Sony will put more and more emphasis on the blu-ray and multimedia functions of the PS3. Combine that with a lower price-point - an everyday affordable one that it'll probably reach around Christmas of '09 - and sales will skyrocket ahead of the 360.

To those that think the numbers being "thrown around" are off the wall, you have to remember a few things.

(1) This is based off of in-depth analysis. That means nothing is being "thrown around", but being analyzed and critiqued. These are educated estimates.

(2) The Wii and the PS3 both will have unusually long lifespans (for entirely different reasons, however). The PS3 will likely live (strongly) about a year and a half after its successor is released in 2011-2012. The Wii will easily live most of the way through the eighth generation (which will start in 2011), and almost see its grandchild's release (Support for the Wii very possibly may end in 2015, with the ninth generation starting only a year or two later). Given such long lifespans, unusually high sales totals are entirely possible.

If the Wii is continued at the rate it currently is (which we know it won't - we know it will increase for a good portion of the generation, but for argument's sake, we'll say it will just continue on the current route), then it will continue selling 1.8m a month. 1,800,000 units x 12 months to a year x 8 to 10 years = 172.8m to 216m. Heck, even if Nintendo went back to the five or six year generation formula (that they've specifically stated that they're working out of, and I think the DS "third pillar" strategy is their method of carrying that out), we'd be looking at 108 to 129.6 million units minimum. MINIMUM. That's assuming sales remain exactly where they've been. And we know that's not happening.

Doktor: What have the PS3 and 360 done for gaming that was new? Anything? No? That's what I thought. Who did something new? Who changed gaming? And what is "evolution" defined as? Change? Yeah. Get your fanboyism out of the thread and consider the facts next time, please.

It's hardly "random guessing". It's the next logical step after what has happened this generation, if things go as they logically appear that they will.

 Any sort of predictions about something like that will, naturally, not have much evidence behind them to say that they certainly will go that way. I mean, this is a bunch of companies we're talking about, and I'm not directly involved with any of them. Of course I couldn't know exactly what will end up happening.

 However, the point of the second part was to make a logical prediction about what will happen in the future, following what I anticipate will happen for the remainder of this generation, and following precedents set in the previous six generations. Precedence has shown that we can logically expect everything I stated there to come true. Of course, precedence doesn't always stand for true, so we can't be certain at all.

And just to point this out - the reason I expect a new competitor to arise is because there has been NOBODY new in six and a half years, and by the dawn of the eighth generation, it will have been ten years. I think 2012-2013 will be a very good time for a new competitor to come out, and I think Phillips will have the money and the know-how to do it. Not to mention creating a competitor to Nintendo is stinkin' common sense. You can count on somebody coming out next generation as a casuals-only competitor to Nintendo, and they will definitely do well for themselves. 

Educated estimates?? This is nothing more than guesses made by analyst wannabes. Nothing more, folks. Predicting the future like this is stupid. There is no way to make an educated estimate of the video game market 10 years into the future. Not even 5 years. I'd say predictions beyond 12-18 months, is just as unpridictable as guessing the end of the world.

Since Wii is aiming for a market we know nothing about (the casual market), I'd say all sale predictions are like target practice by a blind person.

I do these predictions myself. And for each extra month included, I increase the margin of error. With predictions 12-18 months into the future, the margin of error has increased to a degree that it's just silly to make any kind of sale prediction.



With that said, I agree with some of the conclusions made by thetonestarr. However, I refuse to even suggest any figures for potential life time sales.

 Not that hard, just going on historical data you can easily see that sales will be higher than PS2, the questions is how much higher, a question that depnds on the size of Wii's blue ocean, right now it seems huge, but it is a hard thing to judge

Last time I checked, estimates are usuallys guesses that are found by educationed analysis of current and past data. I do agree somewhat with the bolded statement, because we just can't know how big this "blue ocean" is. I'd say safe bets place the Wii doing as well, or slightly better than the PS2, and since production limits one to saying only about 20 million units a year, that would place it right with the PS2 until the ending of the world, which we all know is in 2012. ;) Sarcasm aside, a good educated estimate would led one to believe that the Wii would do at least what the PS2 ends up doing, and probably much more. Just how much is the question.

I do aprove of this thread. Very good look at the market.

Also, to everyone who says that the PS3 will sell in a few years as Blu-ray penetration increases, I won't deny many will pick up the PS3 as a blu-ray player, but the question is, how many? Once blu-ray players and HD formats reach "mass adoption" the blu-ray players will probably be cheaper than the PS3, so many who care nothing for gaming will buy a regular stand-alone player. When my parents go looking for DVD players, they go to the electronic section and then go look at the DVD/VCR area. They don't go looking at the gaming section to find a DVD player. That's why I think the whole "marketing the PS3 as a blu-ray player" is flawed. Not many of those that are into gaming would decide to buy the PS3 because it has a blu-ray player; they'll probably buy it because it has the games they want, and the blu-ray will be an "extra feature" just like the DVD in a PS2 was. Those that aren't into gaming probably won't look at PS3 as a blu-ray player because by the time the masses start getting into blu-ray/HD, stand-alones will be cheaper (like I said), and since they have no interest in gaming, the "extra feature of gaming" will be in a sense "lost" to them. And finally, those that choose a PS3 now simply because it's a cheap blu-ray may or may not be into gaming, and as such may or may not buy a lot of games.

Take a look at Japan last week for example. Really slow week across the board. Here's some numbers:

• Wii userbase (Japan): 5.11 million; Wii software last week: 213k
• Wii weekly sales: 81k; PS3 weekly sales: 32k
• PS3 userbase (Japan): 1.86 million; PS3 software last week: 38k
• Ratio of Wii to PS3 userbase: 2.74 Wii's for every PS3
• Ratio of Wii to PS3 weekly sales: 2.5 Wii's for every PS3 sold
• Ratio of Wii to PS3 software: 5.6 units of Wii software for every 1 unit of PS3 software
• No big releases for either, though PS3 had a new released called Juiced, while Wii didn't have any

Marketing the PS3 as a blu-ray player has is like a two edged sword. The up side - get people to switch to blu-ray. Down side - those people may not buy games, thus making software sales not as good, thus leading to fewer games being made, and then a tumbling down cycle occurs. Obviously Sony wants to win the format war, so loosing the console war probably isn't too big of a deal to them. And I think the reason they want the PS3 to last 10 years is so that when the PS4 comes out they can introduce a new format, though I think by then online distribution will be used by a good deal of people. I'm just pointing this out because in 2 or 3 years, when HD really starts getting to the masses, it'll be too late for the PS3, since it won't have the support now that it needs so that later down the line it can sell to those "upgrading" to HD. And since it's not like the Wii can't be played on a HDTV, and more than likely the Wii will have more games (casual and hardcore) by then, I doubt a lot of people will start buying PS3s then.

Edited to remove "cherry picking" (I forgot to include weekly ratio of sales for the consoles)