GTA4 is a casual game , deny it all you want , but 10-15million (or more) copies sold per game clearly can only be achieved by a mass market title with much casual appeal - ofcourse hardcore gamers love it aswell

So, much like SSBB and SMG then? The hardware spikes upon "core" game launches give a pretty fair testament to a console's install base and their preference, and based on that it looks like very many Wii owners are in fact "core" gamers.

'waits for lol followed by some very obscure reason why my logic is flawed, as always'

 Actually Mummel, you may be right, I would wait a few weeks before saying one way or the other, but you may be right about Wii gamers being more core than believed, however a large portion are not core, so Wii actively taps from both markets

Actually I would say that SSBB is a perfect and first fitting example of how much a Wii title could sell Wii consoles. I can't recall Wiis being in high enough supply to get much of a increase in sales in one shot - we just hope that there IS a supply when SSBB is released, at least in the US, to see how much it spikes Wii hardware sales.

If it's sold out too much, we won't have a really good measurement until..... maybe Mario Kart? But that's not nearly as big of a release.

Nope... Not going to happen. There will be a shift in gamers wants and needs when more great games come out on both the 360 and PS3 (especially the PS3, there are lots of PS2 owners waiting for that "killer" game to come out.)

I would say going into the holiday '08 probably November.

 If PS3 are bumped by even 100k in one week due to GTAIV, it would, imo, be a considerable bump for PS3 in one week, or even one month... infact, 250k is unrealistic, but a HUGE bump... yet in the grand scheme of things, 250k out of the already all-three console base of nearly 50 million between them, .25 out of 50 is nothing overall.

Yeah, it could bump heavily, but as you state, temporary bump.  If you sold double time, PS3 would -still- take 2 years to catch up, if not way longer.

I think you're more correct than others give you. 

This week's estaimates are already at  almost 60% of the consoles sold for the week - 60% each week is a good way of making an overall 50% at some point.

People are giving a bit too much credit to how much GTA 4 will move hardware, imo.. i mean.. lets say it moves an extra 2 million hardware on EACH of the consoles during its launch period (before being regulated back to normal sales) ... ok..so thats 4 million (most optimistic scenario for hardware moving, i'd say).. then what? wii will still be outselling them both together right after that dies down.. and although nintendos marketshare will take a fairly big hit, probably about 5%.. but then it'll just start building up again slowly.. then we'll be having the same discussion in 12 months when MGS4 or FFXIII come out

I agree, and believe, that Smash Bros isn't going to raise console sales that much.. perhaps it'll double usual weekly sales for one week (not optimistically).. since most (but not all, probably like halo 3 to xbox 360, but with a different sales trend) of the smash crowd already own wiis...

That said.. Mario Kart and Wii Fit.. those two are the software titles that are going to bring in the masses, and they won't push wii up to 50%, but they will be a big step in pretty much nullifying a lot of the effect GTA4s launch had

This post is purely speculative, but i feel i've made pretty fair calls

Never, the wii supply will eventually catch up to demand and price drops for the PS3 and 360 will steal more market share.