The Wiimote is not a fad though. It is a new control scheme. It is a fad like the PS3 controller is a fad. Calling it a fad denegrates the actual value it has. It is the closest thing to a mouse a console has ever seen and still manages to stay true to what a console controller should be.

Franchise switching has little to do with raw power though. Monster Hunter 3 was a PS3 exclusive! That kind of leap is absolutely insane. Given it is the sole example now, but we are still early in this gen. Looking past that for a second though I would argue older examples can still hold up. RE4 is the best example I can think of right now. The PS2 version had to be significantly altered graphically. If there is a large enough difference that they needed to rework art assets, how much more work would it take to tone them down a bit more? Developers vision of what they want is often tinted green if ya catch my drift and as things stand now the Wii is looking like it will win. This generation will be close than the last one, but do not under-sell the Wii here.

I remain unconvinced of the lack of anything the size of MKWii or SSBB coming to the Wii, but I can see your point. Those are two huge guns, and possibly the best first party titles on the system save the Wii series. What happens third party wise is still too big a mystery to call though. What developers start taking the Wii seriously, and what they do for it after that still is unknown.

And while you may say we disagree about when the Wii will fade, I think we disagree on more than that. I firmly believe that the Wii will end up at around 50% market share minimum, and handly beat both the competitors which will be about even. Success in consoles is self perpetuating, and publishers will follow whatever system makes them more money. They would all jump to the N-Gage if they thought at the end of the year it would get them $2 more.

Rock_on_2008 said: FishyJoe said: lol @ Fish Joe good illustration of leo-j's sales analysis. Flat line for Nintendo Wii

ah yes, the good times. How is Pachter doing these days? Anywayxs, not to confuse the never guys (like Rock), you might need to update this graph or put it in context, Fishy. 

I think wii will have couple more years good sales..then it´s gonna slow down..But i think it will sell still about 60 million copies ltd at the end of 2011.Families will value the pick up and play..Casual market will buy we a long time.
Comparison PS3 will start enormous climing this year and it will go way past XBOX360..but not near wii sales
Ugh i have spoked

Kihniö said: I think wii will have couple more years good sales..then it´s gonna slow down..But i think it will sell still about 60 million copies ltd at the end of 2011.Families will value the pick up and play..Casual market will buy we a long time. Comparison PS3 will start enormous climing this year and it will go way past XBOX360..but not near wii sales Ugh i have spoked

If you look at sales trends over previous years, and use the Q1 numbers to date to predict year end sales, the Wii is selling at a rate where it will have a userbase of 45 Million systems by the end of this year. For it to only have sold 60 Million units by the end of 2011 we would have to see a rapid slowdown immediately.

it make sens that they would rather selling the wii in europe since the euro is stronger than the dollar

PDF, you seem to assume that for some odd reason, Wii sales will flatline out of nowhere in late 2010/ early 2011. I have to ask, where do you get this assumption from? Because all trends seem to refute this assumption. I mean you are entitled to your opinion, but I'm just having trouble finding where you draw this from? Wii is the fastet selling console of all time, and has yet to fully reach demand, while nintendo keeps upping its production to catch up with this demand. So if anything, the rate of Wii sales might actually INCREASE in the coming years, not decrease.

 You seem to base this off of the fact that Nintendo doesn't have many heavy hitters left, but you fail to realise that Nintendo obviously will keep pumping out the big names in order to keep the momentum going. They're not just gonna call it quits after Wii fit and Mario Kart.. Just because we don't know what they have coming doesn't mean they have nothing else coming..

And you also asume that Wii sales will flatline in 2011 as a result of Nintendo releasing a new console, but if sales are still going relatively strong for the Wii (which is very likely), you can bet Nintendo won't be releasing another console within the standard 5 year time frame. Why would they, if all it would do is cut off sales from its already successful Wii?

PDF said: ClaudeLv250 said: I never "attacked" you. And you talk about Nintendo fans being defensive, you seem to think people questioning your posts is an 'attack' telling you that you're not allowed to think a certain way when that's far from the truth; just another excuse for the victim card. This is a sales site and people are going to debate, and a lot of that is based on facts and sales history. Basically what you 'feel' flies in the face of past trends and most predictions of Wii doom suggest an unprecedented swing and change that goes against the story the numbers tell. Couple this up with vague (YES, VAGUE) and poorly supported arguments revolving around how Nintendo and/or 3rd parties are going to just dry up in the next year for no other inexplicable reason beyond them not having anything else to put out after 20 years and you can see why people would disagree. And I think you're the one that's defensive. You should learn to take the brunt of the arguments when you present an unpopular position on a forum. You attacked my prediction. I am defending that means your attacking but if you dont like thos words we can call them the negative and affirmative. I would be affirmative since I am backing up my prediction and you are negative since you are trying to break it down. I dont have a problem with you debating my point but you implied that I can not tolerate people having different views than me. When I never had this problem, you do. You dont like my predicitons because I dissagree with your view. I am simply trying to defend my point. Do you not read any of my other post.? I AM NOT ARGUEING THAT NINTENDO WONT HAVE ANY 3RD PARTY SUPPORT OR ANY NEW IP. I am just saying that they wont be as big as SSBB or MK. Do you know the meaning of Vague? Vague:not clearly or explicitly stated or expressed. Look at my last post to you because I clearly did this. Poorly supported in your opinion. You have never prooved me wrong. You can have your opinion but that all it is. I am defensive now but you guys were defensive as soon as I said somthing bad about the Wii. I dont see you guys going after Avinash Tyagi for his outragous predictions. You go after mine because you dont like it.

What you seem to fail to grasp, PDF, is that the entire point of a forum about sales and sales predictions is that people will make predictions and then other people will pick those predictions apart looking for things that need improvement.  In this case people have argued that your predictions seem to be based on little if any actual evidence indicating that your assertions are factual or evidence that your assertions are based on well-supported trends.  In fact, your arguments all seem to hinge on the defiance of all applicable historical trends, with little or no reason given other than "the Wii is just that unique and unprecedented".  That may be so, but you still need either to (1) give some other reason that we should think that your interpretation is correct or (2) not expect us to take your interpretation seriously.

You have attempted to give some other reasons, such as:  Nintendo will run out of IP; Nintendo will not have new IP; third parties will not support it enough; I just think it will.  I may have missed a few, but to my knowledge they have all been shot down by very well-supported arguments (supported, that is, by direct evidence and trend-based evidence) except for the final one, which you well know is not evidence for ANYTHING.

As for vagueness, you have been very specific in your statements of very generalized (i.e. vague) justifications for your predictions.

Now, it may be that your critics are more strenuous in their examination of your predictions compared to predictions that are more optimistic where the Wii is concerned, but that doesn't somehow invalidate their criticisms.  If their criticisms are rational and reasonable, there is no reason for you to dismiss them with blithe generalizations and hand-waving like you have done.

I do give you credit for not retreating into the sad "my opinion so it can't be wrong lol" that so many fall back to, but you DO seem to be headed in the direction of "you can't disprove me completely, 100%, beyond any possible doubt at all, therefore our predictions are equally likely".  That is wrong.

I also want to address a specific point of contention.  You said, "I AM NOT ARGUEING THAT NINTENDO WONT HAVE ANY 3RD PARTY SUPPORT OR ANY NEW IP. I am just saying that they wont be as big as SSBB or MK."

If the 360 and PS3 never have anything as big as GTAIV after that hits, does that mean everything is doom and gloom for them in the future based on that?  No; that's a silly argument.  LBP, KZ2, FFXIII, etc. on the PS3, and all the big games coming to the 360, can still be big hits and system sellers even if they don't ever reach the high-water mark laid down by the giant tsunami that preceded them.  You can say they'll never have something AS BIG as that again -- I've said that many times about Halo 3 on the 360 -- but that doesn't mean that it's all over, and it doesn't even mean that the combined effect of many other games can't potentially be bigger overall.  Your predictions have the Wii decline very very fast and the mere fact that it won't get another game as big as SSBB of MKW (if that is a fact) does not in any way justify that conclusion.  Especially with the comparatively huge legs Nintendo games often get compared to the biggest series on the other consoles.

What people fail to realize is that there are hundreds of millions of untapped customers. The current video game audience only represents a small fraction of the overall population. Nintendo hasn't even begun expanding the audience yet.

It's like the portable music player market before Apple came along. Sony had a pretty decent brand with the Walkman. When people thought of portable music players, Walkman was the name. But at some point, Sony stopped selling to new customers. The market stagnated because noone really attempted to lure new customers.

Then Apple came along with the iPod. Was it the most technically capable player? No. Did they ever sell it at a loss? No.

What did they do? They made it as easy as possible for the technically illiterate to use it.

And just like Nintendo, you had endless tech nerds giving us every reason to believe iPod sales would fall. Yet, the iPod success still continues long after these 'experts' claimed that it would die.

Why? Because they sold to the world of people noone else would. The same thing Nintendo is doing.

That world is a lot bigger than the current video game community, much, much bigger.

I've only read a little of this Sony vs. Nintendo battle, but I think it's really unknown what the Wii is going to do later in this generation. By no means will it be a failure and that is already established, but it will either

1. Quickly decelerate when Nintendo gets their new console out. Quickly accelerating products tend to quickly decelerate as well. At the time the next Nintendo console is released, people may think "The Wii is Soooo... Yesterday."

or

2. It will have the very slow deceleration that the PS2 is experiencing right now.