I really dont care about your percentages because it doesnt make sense. You expect the PS4 to sell 12 million a year for 6 years straight without a pricecut. HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA nice joke

Dude, PS4 will sell on average 12-13m a year WITH timely planned pricecuts, PS4 still costing 399 6 years from now might only sell 2 million.

PS4 will sell 100m in 7 years maximum but will not sell 55m like the PS2 after PS5 launches. PS2 only sold that much because PS3 was expensive and nobody was prepared to buy it.

What also makes sense is this:

Xbone will never ever sell 70 million. 360 will barely (if it ever reaches) 90m, Xbone will do 45-50m. 360 launched at a much cheaper price and Sony is dominating in every region, the only region it might get close is the USA. PS360 install base in USA: 70m

360: 45m

PS3: 25m

This gen it will be pretty close in America : 35m:30m for either party. Around 15m American gamers will move to PS4.

So Xbone will only manage to sell 40m in both the US and UK, and barely manage to sell 10-15m outside these 2 markets.

PS4 will not outdo PS2. If PS4 can do 160m, the Xbone will stop selling at 20m, simple as that. It'd mean all gamers moved over to PS4.

Another error you make: nobody will claim Wii's lost 100m big casual market, they're gone, this is why your percentages dont make sense. Wii install base was 80-85m full of casuals who didnt care for gaming and moved over to mobiles. Real Nintendo fanbase was closer to 10-15m.

The Wii U is selling 3m a year, this year it wont be better, maybe 4m tops. It only sold 49k in January.

Wii U will get a successor faster than other consoles, maybe as soon as 2017.

I agree with most of this post. You're a bit harsh about the other guys numbers, but I do like his methodology. But I do agree with what you're saying. No way ps4 out sells ps2, x1 around 55 million(if ms doesn't pull it's head out of its own ass), and wiiu around 15 million....

Let me guys introduce you a sound sales estimate here. Now below on the very left, there are the actual cumulative PS3 sales data, taken from VGChartz data base. On the right, there are 4 possible different scenarios extrapolated from this actual set. Here are a few assumptions, parameters.

a) I assumed that the market will shrink by 17% hence the number 0.83 (from 240 million to 200 million consoles to be sold over 7 years, due to a good chunk Wii crowd leaving the market). This number may be different but not too different.

b) Then I created a scenario where the HD consoles will make up between 80-90% of the market, creating two possible extreme examples, hence the numbers 0.8 & 0.9 corresponding the HD title.

c) Finally the PS4 market among HD Consoles only will range between 67-74%. This all creates a 4 combination output.

When you apply those 4 different scenarios for cumulative sales over 7 years, just take a look at the numbers that appear. You may crunch the numbers in anyway you like, Numbers don't lie.

So basically, this predicts that PS4 will sell between 13.6 and 17 at the end of this year; and between 120 to 149 million at the end of 2020. You may ask the reason for discrepancy between this estimate and the original one. There are 2 reasons :

a) The previous estimate assumed constant market size, this one shrinks it by 17%

b) The previous estimate was based on 2005-2012 data, this one is based on 2006-2013, causing slight differences.

* By the way, I am aware that the first year results are off, that's expected due to short term supply deviations, which tend to smooth out over the long run.

PS4 is way to high.

I applied basically the same extimates for XB1, with one caveat. Because X360 was early to the party and unrivalled at the time,

a) People simply had no choice so they went with X360

b) Many people waited till the PS3 was released, which SLOWED DOWN the first year sales of X360, which creates problems in comparison to XB1.

A good but simple and reasonable solution is to take year averages between the current and the following year, rather than the end of year results. This may create some problems in the short run, it usually works out just fine in the long run (a commonly applied method in economic forecasting). So here are the estimates for XB1 under similar conditions

Market Size shrinks by 17%, HD Console Share increases up to 80-90% range XB1 market share drops to 24-33% range.

This is completely based on the general market and X360 specific data from VGChartz; there are 2 main suggestions here.

a) XB1 will sell between 6.3 to 9.8 million at the end of this year

b) XB1 will sell between 41.3 to 63.9 million at the end of 2020

The math and historical data is there, check for yourself. All the formulations and reasonings are provided. Everything makes perfect sense, regardless of how off it may seem or sound to you.

Just like everyone else, your predictions come down to your assumptions. You go into great detail about how exactly those assumptions will produce a certain result, and that is great, but it doesn't make your assumptions any more valid. I think the biggest flaw in your reasoning is that you assume that the ~80M or so that left the WII will move to the will move over to the PS4 and X1, but I don't this is true at all. If you were to change that assumption, your conclusions would look veru different, for the PS4 and X1.

I actually address that in the last tables, which assume the market will shrink by 40 million (from 240 million in 7 years to 200 million). Basically out of the 90 million Wii users (end of 2012), 40 million will exit the market and 50 million will either go buy a WiiU, or PS4 , XB1.

In 7th Gen (end of 2012)

HD Consoles : 150 million
Wii : 90 million
Total : 240 million

In 8th Gen (end of 2020, estimated), roughly

HD Consoles : 160-180 million
Wii : 20-40 million
Total : 200 million

The problem with doing this is that we have 3 months of data which includes, launch and a holiday.

Really, from what I can discern all you are doing is taking last gens figures and then extrapolating the figures based on marketshare to the numbers we have from the aforementioned 3 months of data.

I dont see a confidence interval, standard deviation or even factored in inflation, income levels or mention of saturation into the results

Its just simply too rudimentary of an equation, and to be honest quite pointless because youre not measuring a static figure. Youre attempting to extrapolate marketshare based on 3 moving parts and companies who will act and react with each other.

There is nothing wrong with your range necessarily if you had a concrete confidence interval to work with or compute, People saying the range is too wide, I feel, dont understand statistical analysis.I just dont think you can compute a decently accurate range with the variables you're using here.

Youre numbers are very sound and I honestly wouldnt be surprised if this is fairly accurate but I just cant imagine, like I said, 3 companies reacting to each other not adding in unknown variables and when we KNOW there will be unknown variables, unseen and unaccounted for, it makes this analysis, at this time, pointless.

After a year (this time next year), you could build a similar graph that I feel would reflect the changing market and give better figures.

Not exactly but you have valid points although you're missing something, it's based on history, experience & analytical understanding of the market (call it reasonable intuiton to see things clearly from the big picture) since the original playstation 1. ANd let me tell you, yes, sometimes the range was large, but my estimates always held true. Again visit here again to check out the numbers. I can already tell you that, the numbers may change because of the movement of the parameters within the given range, but they will not deviate from it.