I'm sorry, there is no way that is your "Lowest realistic expectations for lifetime sales"

Essentially you're saying that there is no way that less that 250,000,000 consoles will be sold in this generation; the worst case scenerio for the PS3 would be that games like MGS4 and FFXIII were ported to the XBox 360 (or became XBox 360 exclusives), Killzone 2 was as bad or worse that Killzone, God of War 3 is delayed for several years, and most people were not interested in the other games.

Just a quick side note here-- Does everyone's estimation for Xbox refer to new consoles sold, or this including the bloated numbers for the asinine number of refurbs?

I am guessing that by the end of this gen. A total of 300M units would be sold. Yes, I believe the gaming industry is in bloom :)

Wii: 200m
360: 40m
PS3: 60m

I think ps3 will overtake 360 in a year or 2.

PS3 15 mil - If the sales don't pick up soon 3rd party developers will get very scared. However if the price is dropped siginficantly and some major games come out it has a very high potential of 60-80 mil. I was going to go lower but i think with price drops Bluray will positively affect sales

Xbox 360 30 mil - $199/$299 price range will make this a viable second place in the worst case scenario. The strengths of Live however keep the mainstream market unimpressed because they are just not into online gaming and Hardcore esoteric Live Arcade Games. The High end for 360 is much closer to the low end, though new models boost this in later years with lower price tags (40-50 mil)

Wii 40 mil - If the wii loses momentum this will have very little effect. Kids are usually slower to adapt to trends in Gaming Hardware (Unlike the adult ipods). Third parties are belatedly flocking to wii, and long development cycles mean we won't see the results until early 2008 as games hit testing, just after the 07 holiday when Wii will need a boost. Late in the generation one of two things will happen. Either 3rd party support snowballs Wii into something bigger than any other system ever (130+ mil) or the fad dies down and 40 million wii are already in households.

A side effect, because of the success of the wii, in the worst case a 3 1/2 to 4 year life cycle and the introduction of a Wii Lite or HD with bumped up resolutions but not still not to the level of ps3 and probably not even 360, we will see a longer life cycle for PS3 (if SCE survives three years at less than 5 mil average) and 360.

Difficult question, but I´ll give it a shot with my first post here anyway :)

I`m quite sure that the PS3 will be catching the 360 sooner or (more realistic) later, since MS is just waiting to long with it`s first price cut.
When it evetually comes, it will be most likely countered by Sony, so the effect won`t be that big.
The 360 is not doing better than the old XBox until now, and the PS3 will get some good games in the (not so near) future, so the "sit and wait"-game, that MS is
playing at the moment could in the end lead to another defeat with another multi- Billion Dollar loss for the Gates company.
If the Wii will be continue it`s victory march will be mostly decided on the software side: Are the developers/publishers aible to ship enough decent games, which are using the Wiimote effectively? An will the majority of the DS-Users "upgrade" to the Wii?

Worst case predictions:

360: 25 Million
PS3: 30 Million
Wii: 35 Million

"Realistic" predictions:

360: 25-40 Million
PS3: 40-60 Million
Wii: 40-70 Million

"Dominate the World" predictions:

360: 40-50 Million
PS3: 80-100 Million
Wii: 80-120 Million

Yeah, i know I´am not giving MS a good chance of winning anything here, but that`s just my personal view on the current generation.
For myself, I´am playing on the 360 most of the time, and the only other console used frequently is my DS. My Wii wasn`t touched for some month, and I didn`t know why I should get a PS3 for at least another 12 month.
But I just don`t see MS getting a momentum, just Halo 3 an GTA4 probably won`t be enough.

WOW... people are really harsh on their estimations for the PS3... I can't believe people think it will sell so poorly over it's entire life.

Sorry but I think the ABSOLUTE minimum for the PS3 would be 60 - 70 million over it's entire life... I don't think the general consumer is smart enough to realise that you can get a experience as good or better on other consoles. TOO many people WANT a PS3 but don't want to pay for it, but will when the price comes down... this is the only reason that it's not selling so well, as soon as it hits 400 and 300 it will be lapped up, I have no doubts, as this is when the PS2 software will have dried up and the PS3 software will be in full swing.

I also think that people are being far to generous on the Wii... all it takes is one small falter and the sales can just stop... i'm also not sure if continuing demand is being created or whether they are still riding on the launch demand which is causing the 'sold out' status for the console. I think worst case scenario the console could die quickly very soon after people figure 'damn i wasted my money' what else is the point of owning this? I think it might even only make it to 30 - 40 million

Then the Xbox 360... people are being pretty accurate with the 360 expectations, because there is no CLEAR winner that every consumer is going to jump on board with (think back to the 'get on board' ps2 ads, they were fantastic) the 360 has a good chance of extending it's sales, however I don't think it will ever reach over 40 million in the BEST case scenario and therefore as a worst case, if PS3 and Wii dominate the 360 leaving it in the dust in the coming years after the splash from Halo 3 settles and people realise there is nothing else worth buying the console for... i'd say worst case is 25 million though it's pretty unlikely.

I can't believe some of the predictions some people have put in this thread.. an ABSOLUTE WORST CASE SCENARIO Wii gets 200 million?? WTF that's absolute BEST case scenario and doesn't belong in this thread. 

Origin the PS3 worst case scenario is pretty much that its decreasing price doesnt help it as media attention turns away from it and stays on the Wii along with 3rd party support going to both the Wii and the 360. If that happens the consumer will forget the Playstation brand - the only reason they remember it is because the media has been pushing it in their face for the last decade.

Personally I believe the PS3 will do significantly better than my worst case prediction, but its a worst case not an estimation of what its likely to do.

I don't agree... I don't think consumers will just turn away from the Playstation brad... but that's why we all have different opinions I guess... I think 60 million consoles sole is an absolutely failure by Sony...

wii - 40

ps3 - 40

xbox360 - 35

Ok I'm absolutely certain that these numbers are totally off. Wii will either fail miserably in the next couple of years or continue selling like that and hit somewhere around 100 mil. It really depends on whether casual and non-gamers will continue buying it.

Ps3 is so grossly underestimated that I can't even believe those guys :/ GT3 is the best selling ps2 game and it came early in the beginning of ps2 life. I think it sold around 16 mil worlwide. Obviously it's a HUGE system seller. By the time gt5 comes out the ps3 will be probably around 400-450$ which is pretty reasonable. Also we have other big system sellers like mgs4, and ff13. Even gta4 although it's on 360 as well will probably sell quite a few consoles. Not to mention all the smaller IPs and new ones :/ I mean seriosly there are just way too many system sellers for it to sell anything less than 40 mil and that's the bare minimum.

The 360's future is also very unclear. It has much better game support than the xbox but with the RROD problem it'll make most gamers think twice whether they want to buy a 400$ console that they'll have to replace in a year or two :/ If MS manages to fix this problem I would think they'll get to around 60 mil maybe even 70.

I would say that far more than half of the PS2 consumers bought not out of brand loyalty but because it was cheap, had a good library and was popular. This time round it doesnt seem to be any of the three, if it doesnt become any of the three those consumers from last time around have no reason to buy.

Thats my reason for giving a ridiculously low number for the lowest possible from the PS3.