Well I guess I have to concentrate while writing this post, if I don't it would hurt the discussion I think

First of all, I don't know if your observation really is correct. You say that the Wii's sales pattern is similar to PS2's, but the 360's is not similar to the XBox's and the PS3's is not to the Cube's. It seems I can't do a proper comparison here on VGChartz with aligned launches, but I think it is ok to say that the PS3 is not selling completely different than the Cube was.
The 360 is more difficult because it had a headstart (btw, this is something to remember too about last gen, the PS2 never really was in concurrence to one of the other consoles).


So to answer your questions:

1: Market domination means you have at least 50 % of the market and you outsell every concurrent with at least 2:1.

2: It's sales.

3: Here it gets interesting. I don't want to read too much out of your questions, but I think I know where you are going. You say that as long as the Wii's dominance is not affecting either of its concurrences (What I doubt, as pointed out above) the Wii can't actually be competing in the same market as the other two, just like handhelds aren't competing with home consoles.
My point of view is that in the gaming world, the only way to seperate markets is between handhelds and stationary consoles, also including PC's. Even this is not really true, because DS sales sure are affecting console sales and vice-versa. The best example that there isn't a real border is the fact that DQIX will be DS exclusive.
To sum up my thoughts about Question 3: As long as important franchises like Monster Hunter 3 are changing platform from HD console to Wii, I don't think you can say there is a (sales-wise important) difference between the Wii and the other two consoles.

4: I answered parts of that in my reply to 3. As long as there are important differences in terms of sales, they are affecting "dominance". i. e. the DS can be dominating while the Wii is also dominating. However, there are no such differences between the Wii and the PS3/360.

I hope this was serious enough for you.

Myth #1: The PS3 is selling at a similar rate to the PS2.

The PS2 had a much more staggered launch than the PS3 did, and if you look at the sales by region it becomes clear that the PS3 is performing far worse than the PS2:

Japan (PS2 4.5 Million, PS3 1.9 Million) http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Japan&cons2=PS3&reg2=Japan&cons3=PS2&reg3=Japan&weeks=65

North America (PS2 8.3 Million, PS3 3.8 Million)  http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=America&cons2=PS3&reg2=America&cons3=PS2&reg3=America&weeks=65

Other Regions (PS2 3.6 Million, PS3 4.1 Million) http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Total+Other&cons2=PS3&reg2=Total+Other&cons3=PS2&reg3=Total+Other&weeks=65

The ONLY reason why the PS3 is currently outselling the PS2 in the other regions is because the PS3 has had 1 holiday season with ample supply and the PS2 had not; over the next 18 weeks of sales the PS2 will gain 3.5 Million sales while the PS3 will (likely) see less than 1 Million in that timeframe.

^^ to make "nintendo_fanboy"'s point:

If you look at the patterns the similarities still hold....

Wii VS PS2 - http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=All&cons2=PS2&reg2=All&cons3=&reg3=------&weeks=156
PS3 VS GC - http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS3&reg1=All&cons2=GC&reg2=All&cons3=&reg3=------&weeks=156
360 VS Xbox - http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=X360&reg1=All&cons2=XB&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=------&weeks=156

Each of the new generation consoles is slightly ahead of the last gen consoles. A large portion of the reason why is obviously that the market has grown as it always seems to. So my question would be what reason is there to believe that this isn't going to be a repeat of the last gen with Sony and Nintendo swapping places?

The answers of course will have to do with the approaches made and the audiences appealed to etc...and I'm not entirely sure what the correct answer is as of now. But it definitely seems clear to me that there are striking similarities between last gen and current gen.

Thanks for helping me to prove my point sqrl. Also, I want to second your two VGcents and HappySquirrels statements.

It might be worth noting that the comparison is probably a bit more valid if you compare the 360 to the GC and the PS3 to the XB...seems a bit weird but in terms of sales paths thats what seems to provide the closest fit.

Market Domination is putting you in a room with 28 soriku's...

Welcome back Kwaad

Market domination, it must be enough to absolutely crush anything else. Owning around 70%-80% of the sales.

some examples.

*ITune vs Emusic (never heard of Emusic? Yeah, that's why)

*PS2 vs xbox/GC: 120 mil vs 20 million vs 20 million

Walmart vs Target (DVD sales only): Walmart sells over 70% of all DVDs in US