Hey Source. You just proved my point right there. Thank you.

Don't be so cautious. Take a chance! Deep down you know it's gonna happen.

Wii IS the world's greatest selling home console EVER in the making. And it will exceed the 200 million mark GUARANTEED.

I'm not afraid to say it. Are you?

"Official VGChartz Idiot"

John Lucas 

 Yeah, I agree with you here, Source. It really depends on how big that Blue Ocean is. Has Nintendo tapped 5-10 million new users with the Wii? That would be impressive, certainly, and I'd say that's somewhere around the minimum. But what if it's 50 million? 75? Those aren't impossible figures, if women and adults begin to purchase the machine in large numbers in Japan/America/Europe. Until we have a firm grasp on just how well the system is selling to such people, we really won't know how significantly the market has expanded. 

The reality is that everyone sooner or later is going to by the Wii... the causal gamers will buy it because of its price and "nice" control... the softcore gamers ( last-gen casual gamers... nowadays their age range from 12 - 18 ) will buy have a principal console... PS3 o Xbox360... and the wii... and the hardcore gamers already have the three consoles... so eventually when the wii 's price reaches the 150 - 200 price point... it will sell at a faster pace do to the fact that it would be like a compulsory purchase... it will happen the same as DVD Players when they were so cheap that even my grandma bought 4 just for having a couple of spare ones in case the broke...

Wow. I'm stunned here. Stunned by the TOTAL HYPOCRISY of this Screen Digest Group. "We don't know what's going to happen yet", blah blah blah. Oh really? Then why did you tell us what was going to happen back in February!

Through 2010, Screen Digest has PS3 in first and Wii in a distant third. These market share predictions were extracted from a graph, since the exact numbers are not in the Gamasutra article. The Japanese market prediction seems strange, but we'll see what happens.

Japan
360 - 11%
PS3 - 64%
Wii - 25%

USA
360 - 42%
PS3 - 38%
Wii - 20%

Europe/Australia
360 - 37%
PS3 - 43%
Wii - 20%

Check the link out right here: http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=16280&page=3 (post #28). Apparently it was OK to project the console race back then - with the Wii DEAD LAST in every region! - and now that the former projection has proved laughably wrong, it's "too early to make predictions." That's some gutless, yellow-bellied, cowardice and hypocrisy right there. Be a man and admit that you were wrong.

They still can't accept that the Wii is going to be the worldwide leader in sales, either. Why is this so hard to admit? It's led in sales (overwhelmingly!) in every region in every month this year, with the one exception of the PS3 launch. Heck, it's actually led in every WEEK this year in every region! Jon Lucas may be crazy, but he's got the general idea right here. Maybe someday the "analysts" will get out of denial and see it too.

It's not that easy ...

These analysts make money by predicting the market and selling their predictions. The fact that his prediction is laughable wrong is his problem because he will be unable to sell future predictions to people if they think that they can be this far off. He's not saying "the race is too early to tell" he is saying "give my prediction a chance" because he's afraid that no one will pay him again.

Sulla that prediction you cited would translate like this (assuming a 33 million console market in Japan, a 72 million market for Eur/Others, and a 100 million market for the USA) by 2012:

PS3 - 90 mill

360 - 72.27 mill

Wii - 42.65

That goes along pretty well with the line of thinking where Nintendo & Microsoft are stronger this time around while Sony is weaker..

They have the right idea, but I think their percentages are pretty screwed up...360 isn't going to triple Microsoft's worldwide marketshare, not at that price, and with the limits in Japan.  It may double it's market though, which is still quite impressive. 

Wii looks like it's market is going to be 4x or more than GC's Japan market..the Americas should see 2-3x the GC market.  The real growth potential is in Europe where I think Wii could grow as big as Sony's former consoles..

If the Wii ever reaches $99US (say $149AU), I could see my parents buying one (if not, I'll buy one for them!).

And IMO - if my parents ever end up with their own Wii (never played games, no interest in games, 0% interest in PS2/PSP/PS3/360, etc..) - I could see every 2nd household (if not more) owning one.

A lot depends on Nintendo's manufacturing & pricing strategy/schedule. They need to get this 2nd (and maybe a 3rd?) manufacturing partner running as soon as possible - drop the price by $100US - and start selling 2.5m-3m/month worldwide (if not more).

...

What I find interesting, is that for the first time (that I know of?) the pricing schedule for a console will be determined solely by the manufacturing capacity of it - rather than by sales itself. (am I wrong saying this?? maybe??).

Of course it could get even more scary, if Nintendo can put 2m/month units on the market, and they KEEP selling out at the current rate. That's basically what has happened to the DS?

Just about everything at the moment depends on the manufacturing capacity that Nintendo can get running for the Wii. 

Yeah, that looks likely - not ;)

Wii will be sitting around 18m by March 08. 360 will be a little behind (if not more), at around 15-16m. And I think Sony will be lucky to have cracked the 10m point by then (very lucky!).

So in the following 4 years, this would have to happen:

PS3 - sells 80m in 4 years (20m/year)

360 - sells 56m in 4 years (14m/year)

Wii - sells 24m in 4 years (6m/year)

...

To put this into context, compared to sales to date:

 - Wii sales would have to drop by 60-75% immediately, after March '08 

 - 360 sales would have to double (currently sold approx 10m in 18months, or 550k/month) 

 - PS3 sales would have to triple (currently sold approx 3.5m in 7 months, or 500k/month) 

...

More significantly, compared to CURRENT sales (last month):

 - PS3 sales would have to jump from approx 180k/month to 1670k/month (i.e. a NINE times increase!)

 - 360 sales would have  to jump from approx 250k/month to 1160k/month (i.e. a 4.5x increase!)

...

I think the numbers speak for themselves...

I'd rather them say that they couldnt tell rather then spew a bunch of turds them have them be painfully wrong. We have patcher for that.

Agreed. But that's not what they did. The Screen Digest Group did tell us what would happen, and were disastrously wrong ("spewed a bunch of turds", to use that colorful phrasing). And now that they've been proven so badly incorrect, they want to pretend they never made a prediction in the first place. I don't know why a couple of the posters here have been jumping to defend that kind of disgraceful corporate doublespeak. If the Screen Digest Group had been correct in their predictions, you can bet they'd be trumpeting it to high heaven.

Again, why is it so hard to admit that they made a mistake? Everyone is wrong sometimes. That's how we, as human beings, learn and grow as individuals. I would have no problem if this group simply acknowleged that they had tried to predict the market previously, made some erroneous assumptions, and were now waiting to make a further prediction. However, they are trying to pretend that the market is simply impossible to predict period, which is hypocritical to say the least. It's one or the other: either you can predict the outcome of the console wars, or you can't. A company certainly can't predict the outcome, be wrong, then back up and say "sorry, it's impossible to predict". That contradicts all logic!

If I hadn't posted their previous prediction, would any of you even know that they had made a (very bad) estimate of the market at all?