I've noticed a split on this forum about the sales expectations of Wii over the course of the generation.

Generally speaking, everyone agrees it will sell very well for the rest of this year.  After that, there seems to be a massive split of opinon.  Some think it will slow down a lot in 2008.  Others think it will maintain momentum through most of 2008, but then slow down in 2009 and beyond.  A third group thinks sales will accelerate throughout the rest of this console generation, peaking in 2009, before finally dying off in 2012 or later.

Group A seems to have Wii at 30-60 million in lifetime sales.

Group B seems to have Wii at 45-80 million in lifetime sales.

Group C seems to have Wii at 80-250 million in lifetime sales.

I find myself constantly wavering at the high end of group b, and the low end of group c.

My concern is, when will we know which group is correct?  I think that is sales remain steady until October, then explode in Nov-Dec, that the low end of group a is all but eliminated, as the momentum will carry Wii through most of (if not all of) 2008 with strong sales.  At that point sales from 2009-2012/2013/2014 would be crucial in determining which group is correct.

To me, the key indicator that group a is correct will come when games like Big Brain Academy, Wii Music, and Wii Health bomb in the west.  Big Brain had a low debut in both the USA & Japan, but I think the game is going to have legs of iron - reaching 300k+ despite debuts in the under 50k range.  However, if these games to bomb, in succession, then I can see that as sign that Wii will fall within the Group A range.

Group B I think ultimately depends on the strength of traditional 3rd parties game being bought.  MySims, Soul Calibur Legends, RE: UC, Nights, Zack & Wiki sales then will be important in determining developer and in turn gamer support for the future.  I suspect that these titles will all enjoy at least some success, with two or more breaking 500,000.  At the very least, sales of DDR and Guitar Hero III will be telling.  My belief is that for Wii to get to over 70 million, 8 major 3rd parties need to have franchises that can sell 500k on Wii.  So far it looks like Ubi Soft is there, and Sega is too (Sonic & The Secret Rings is at 260k in the Americas, 30k in Japan, and had comparable sales in Europe to the Americas I think).  I imagine Activision will get there with GH and the various war games.  Capcom may get there with Resident Evil or Zack & Wiki.  Namco has a bunch of shots with Soul Calibur Legends, Opoona.  Square-Enix has an excellent shot as well with Dragon Quest Swords & Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles having a rapidly growing base in Japan to work on.  If all of those publishers get to 500k+, that would leave EA, Konami, Tecmo, and a host of others with incentive to jump in.  With Rygar announced, I do think Tecmo has a shot, and EA is going to hit it with something- eventually - whether it ends up being Boogie, MySims, Madden or something else entirely.  You have to wonder too if the bad press on Take Two and Manhunt II makes that game all but a shoe in for 500k...Since I do see 8 publishers having games sell 500k on Wii, and I do see the Wii-line of games doing well, I generally fall into the upper range of this category.

Group C assumes that the market Nintendo is chasing will love what Nintendo is doing and flock in droves.  This is the very casual gamer and new market assumption.  To me, Nintendo only gets here when 3rd parties have reliable money making franchises on Wii, and then decide to experiment in the blue ocean as Nintendo has.  If the more creative 3rd parties like Ubisoft & Capcom can help Nintendo with this market, there is enormous possibility.  Ultimately though, I just cant see Wii realistically getting above PS2 levels.  As such, I never go much beyond the lower reaches of group c.  Something like 8/10 of my scenarios for this generation have Wii sales between 60-100 million in worldwide sales.  If all software does start selling well though in late 2007, I think you will see an avalanche of support and originality on Wii that will be hard for Sony & Microsoft to stop.

Well Wii is so huge in 2007 for it to start dying out will take a very long process as you are seeing with the PS2. As much as Sony fans would like to tell you otherwise nothing just dies instantly even when something else explodes. Hence Wii exploding and PS2 still slowing dying out. So it's going to take a good year or 2 for Wii to slow down. YOu'll notice these slow downs by comparing it to how it was doing to a non shipment ridden month or week. Thus meaning 2008 probably isn't going to see any noticeable decreases other than finally having available shipments. But 2009 if what people say is going to happen then Wii will start to slow down. Will take 2 years and in 2011 the Wii will be close to finish. Luckily for NIntendo 2011 will be the key year to release N6 so no worries.

I really think what Nintendo has just done in this first yea and how it'll carry over to the next year is the key for NIntendo being able to last this entire generation and with a very strong lead. To me what I just stated up there is showing a good 80 million in sales which is a winning number. That would be about 35 million in Americas, 25 million in Japan, and 20 million Europe/other. Would be a definite victory for NIntendo.

But the best part of it is if PS3 was starting to get hot in the late 2009/2010 areas as Sony fans would have us believe this is where this is good for both Nintendo and MS. They are going to start the next generation in 2011 timeframe. If Sony is just getting hot releasing the 8th generation consoles right in the middle will kill it. Not only that they could be late for the 8th generation. MS and NIntendo could pull on Sony what Sony and Sega did to Nintendo in the 5th generation by releasing a couple years earlier.

But that's my outlook. I think really that Nintendo will keep strong til about 2010. Then release a new console in 2011 and then that's where the PS2 like slowing process will begin. To me that would put it just around or under 100 million over time. People seem to look at this way too much that well these features or these graphics for whatever will cause customers to all of a sudden switch. No. What are the keys to success. Price and brandname. A great mix of those 2 will pretty much win it for ya everytime. Right now Wii has great games and getting even more and they are slowly reclaiming brandname for Sony. The mainstream name is not Playstation anymore but becoming Nintendo and Wii. Even if Sony does some how edge out a victor this time aroudn they've lost their most important thing: brandname.

hmmnn..I can put myself in group B..I think that the wii will continue to sell very well throughout 2007 and early 2008, but start slowing down througout mid 08 and tink that the ps3 might increase starting this July in sales momentum and surpassing 360 sales sooner or later...

Put me in Group D.

The signs will be when you see those little Wii icons start to cluster up on the top 50 games list. Along with the constance of Wii at the top of the hardware and software lists.

Wii's full 'chartz' dominance will begin entrenching in 2008. They're just playing with the competition right now. The competition better make the most of this opportunity while they can 'cause once that philly gets out the stable you can call it a day.

John Lucas 

If sales started to slow for wii, nintendo are in the strongest position to offer a price cut. I'd be surprised if sales didn't stay very strong until at least 2010.

It's still sold out at most shops... that demand's not going to evaporte in six months, especially as the games available are really set to get stronger.

The wii's price advantage isn't going to disappear either. By the end of this generation, I think nintendo will have been able to lower the price to the point where even those with almost no interest in a wii will have picked one up for the exclusive content.

I think the Wii is going to sell something in between NES and PS1 numbers(60-100M), than release N6 at least a full year before PS4 and xbox 720. The major killer-apps for the Wii will be mainstream-non games(wiimusic, family health, GH, boogie, mysims, animal crossing, etc), first party nintendo(Super mario galaxy, metroid prime 3, SSBB, mariokart, zelda wii, etc) and some of the big hardcore third party titles(soul calibur, RE:UC, Nights, no more heroes, etc) and some big mainstream-hardcore games as EA sports and mario & sonic at the olympic games.

About THE major franchise of last generation: GTA. I think it is going to play a big role in nintendo's succes. I think the Wii won't get one at first, but I think the N6 will have it's very own GTA. When nintendo get's GTA, it will appeal to every audience: non-gamers(wiisports, etc), hardcore(first party games and big exclusives) AND the classic maintream, the PS1/2 generation. They will cross when Nintendo has a share in the GTA series. With that, I think the N6 could surpass the PS2 and possibly the 150 million units sold.

Expectations Wii: -90 000 000 million units sold.
Expectations N6: -150 000 000 million units sold.

I think when Nintendo gets dominant like the PS2, the risk of innovation will be far greater than the risk was with the gamecube. But they must still try to do something new, or they could fall back to a N64-situation.

My only problem with the slow down is its never happened for a console that's been dominant its first two years I mean yes this generation is different but is it so different to buck off prior history. You can say the PS2 performed a similar action when it came from behind to overtake the Dreamcast but that really is more comparable to the Wii coming from behind to overtake the Xbox360. Also looking to the past from the 3rd generation to now the dominant system sells to greater than 50% of the market and picks up a bandwagon effect the longer it is dominant even the SNES which had strong competition took more than 55% of the market during its generation. Add all of these factors up and assume what I think is the worst case senario no market growth from 170 million and you land in low end group C.

80mln Group B Why?
Well why would you buy a Wii?
Nintendo games ofcourse Mario Zelda Metroid.
Party games like Wiisports Mario Party WiiDegree.

I don't think there will be much gamers who buy a Wii for games like: Madden, Spiderman or some other casual game that's multiplatform.

Unfortunetly that's the biggest group of gamers that exists today. But Nintendo is smart: They are letting Sony and Microsoft fight for this group of gamers. The are focussing on a smaller group of gamers, but will be all most monpolist for this group of gamers. Ofcourse I'm talking about the party gamers or gamers who never played a game before and gamers who already played games like singstar buzz.

It's a bit early to tell indeed. Sony announced it would have a 110 real titles in stores, so one could expect that Nintendo will have about the same and higher amount of games. But mostly those big numbers are made by sport games etc that will not drive the consumer towards a console (its multiplatform) and it won't drive developers towards insanity. it has been done before and it will hapen for the next lustrum.

I think the long term sales are correlated with the amount of new well done franchises. There were games like 'beyond good and evil' and 'psychonouts' that were excellent but not sold well, a bit like resistance. On the other hand are games like resident evil that made the franchise live up and made it a console seller.

Now Nintendo tends to invest a lot into new franchises, so i guess if some are great it could fall into category D.
However you have to keep in mind that many remember the PS2. It's a miracle that so much people still are die-hard supporters even if it's clear that it will take Sony at least 2 years to even catch up if it starts selling well at the end of the year. (probably many of them did spend 600$ of a PS3, so they'll want some value out of it sometime)

Oh well, i think it's clear that the Wii will do well. So maybe we could start giving the PS3-fans a bit of help. They seem to need it, the PS3 isn't that bad after all, it's just (very) poorly presented.