JSF said: I don't think it will.
There's a good chance that the Wii is a fad. (Yes, I have one too.) There's an even better chance that the Wii will look very dated in three years. The best years for the Wii will be these first three. If they sell 12 million a year for three years, that's just 36 million. How many more years after that will people continue to want it as much as they do now?
If people want Wii gameplay, the other consoles only have to release a similar peripheral. It's not a strong barrier to entry. In fact, the PS3 Eye, which does a lot of motion tracking stuff, could take a lot of the novelty away from the Wii. With price cuts to $99, Wii can prolong its sales when it starts looking like a Xavix game. Then I can see it maybe breaking 50 million. |
Upon what basis do you believe the Wii is a fad? Thus far, there is zero tangible evidence suggesting you are correct. I suspect that a lot of people who believe the Wii is a fad are simply engaging in wishful thinking, as they don't like the prospect of a Wii dominated gaming market -- with all the implications that has especially in terms of the type of games produced (less God of Wars, more Brain Ages).
It actually is very hard to enter the motion control world this late in the game -- it may even be harder than actually releasing a new console. The PS Eye is actually the perfect example of this. This peripheral for the PS2 had less than 2 million purchases, or about 1/55th of the entire PS2 user base, despite the fact that 10+ games were made in conjunction with it. In fact, I challenge you to find any "extra" peripheral that has ever sold well enough to really alter the way a system fundamentally plays. It's never been done. Every peripheral ever made has always ended up being a niche -- a little trinket to add on to the system for those who choose to do so. And there has never, ever been any peripheral that has been picked up by, say, 50+ percent of the console's user base.