How many people have a TV? Not only in the U.S. but in the whole world? How many people have radios? How many people have pcs? An ipod? DVD player? Reggie even said on E3 07, on this day we mark that video game systems will go along with other entertainment systems in the household. Its not the exact quote but its the same idea. YES! 45million in the US just like your analysis said isnt enough for Nintendo, even they out compete the Playstation 1 and Playstation 2. Their real vision was gaming systems to become a necessity than just a luxury just as like the TVs and radios.

Thats why they're not into high ends and theyre selling their console in a profit, thats why theyre selling their consoles for the casuals, thats why theres wii fit even they abandoning the hardcore. They want their systems not only for few people, thats why they want to sell Wiis as long as they want.

About the price, how much you pay for your HDTV? Your entertainment system? And yet people still and even you want to buy it even its just a TV in High Definition or TV with sorround sound speakers. Same applies to Wiis, it doesnt matter how much the price,as long as its a necessity they want to buy.

So in my conclusion, I think they want to sell the Wiis in 100 million people across america. Sounds weird right? But thats whats their vision anyway.

I've always suspected that it would drop to 50$ at some point. When software sales mean more then console sales (profit wise). So don't count it out.

My 60 million was really the absolute max. I too doubt it will hit that number. 40 million seems more realistic.

At the end of Dreamcast's life its price was 50$, of course Sega was desperate but I don't know if they were really losing money selling it at that price, the GC sells at 100$ and I'm pretty sure Nintendo has never lost any money on a console sold (it's actually 75$ at amazon.com). Knowing that Wii's production cost will drop a lot over the next couple of years I could see it being sold for 50$ at the end of its life cycle.

You have a point, but Nintendo execs aren't stupid, they know there is a limit of how many Wiis they can sell, and how many Wiis do you think a household need? If the family is not big then I guess just 1 Wii is enough.

I bought my HDTV for 600$ and my PS3 cost me 400$, but that's because I have money to spend. How many households do you think could afford a Wii at this price point?? 20% of US populaton doesn't have health insurance, I assume at least other 20% have a tight budget. That leaves us with 60%, of them, how many do you think are really interested in video games?

Let's assume there are 100 million households in the US (I believe 3 people per household is a good average), there would be 60 million households that could afford videogames according to my previous assumptions. Gaming is now a very popular activity, so it's safe to assume that all of the 60 million households that could spend on gaming actually do, but since there are other stuff to spend money on like HDTVs and ipods I don't believe all of those households would pay 250$ for a console, maybe 150$. That's why I believe that when Wii hits 20 million in the US, sales will drop dramatically if prices stay the same.

Was the GC (at its lowest price point) Nintendo's cheapest console, if you correct for inflation?

Well they can just drop the price when they hit their target market like 50 million sales worldwide(Their target sales for this year BTW).

OR make a new Wii in its existing technology with the current Wii like new peripheral or something but not adding a new technology to it, and let the old Wii keeps selling in a budget price.

Same as Apple did with the Ipods, Nano, shuffle, 10, 20, 30, 40 GB hard drive, video, non video but its still ipods, it still uses the same technology as the old ipod only with different names and functions.

The problem facing with gaming industry was it always change as new technology comes and they never uses the current technology in their past consoles. Thats why even the electronics and appliance division are too afraid to invest on gaming consoles.

What Nintendo want to prevent. Nintendo dont want to change and introduced new consoles every 4-5 years just to sustain the gamer's needs on what is new.

Thats why their consoles rely on existing technology because they dont want to end up like SONY and Microsoft that needs to constant remodeling/pimping their consoles every 5 years.

And yeah, there are more surprises waiting for us by Nintendo, seem theyre in control on whats going on right now...