^^Wii having only 45%? The problem is that it's currently already at 47.4%. Which means it has to continue selling for less than 45% of the total market for god knows how long before it can drop to that low.

Also the PS3 has tripped on the starting blocks. A competing product that trips on the starting blocks (failing to impress at the first impression) will have insane difficulty in winning back customers' hearts. Especially when the 360 is playing dirty with their price drops (and not benefitting as much as they'd hope as well!).

If the Wii's demand curve shifts to the left due to any further PS3 price drops, there is no stopping them from getting their first price cut as well, dragging the PS3's demand curve to the left as well to balance things out.

@Garnett- We'll see. I prefer the 360 and that's probably the system I would choose to get as my second console to go along with my Wii. I just think that the PS3 will be stronger in Europe by a large margin before it's over. And at some point, the PS3 will do very well in Japan and the sales will pick up. That's why I think the PS3 will eventually take the #2 spot.

kylohk, I'm a Nintendo fanboy so I wouldn't mind if they did get over 50% of the market. They're at over 47% now but I don't think they'll keep up sales to the point where they're outselling PS3 and Xbox 360 combined. I think sometime starting next year, sales will level out a little bit especially as prices drop on all three consoles. The Wii will still be popular and almost always lead in weekly sales but I think it will be more like 40% for the Wii and somewhat divided between the HD consoles with whichever system has the big game or price drop at the moment taking the lead that week.

That's how I looked at it and came to my guess at the percentage. If I had to give actual sales numbers, I'd guess-

Wii 110 Million
PS3 73 Million
Xbox 360 60 Million

When you align the launches for each region, and factor in the difference in holiday spikes, and compare a variety of systems sales performace the difference between the Wii and PS2 is very similar to the difference between the PS3/XBox 360 and the XBox/Gamecube.

Being that the PS3 and XBox 360 are designed to appeal to the core gamers and technophiles who are (far) more likely to be early adopters, why would these consoles see such high sales with the non-early adopter crowd? At the same time, the Wii is designed to appeal to people who are not the most dedicated of gamers, so as its price drops and it becomes more attractive to these gamers why would its sales drop off?

I really don't know how many consoles will be sold this generation, but the Nintendo DS and PSP are on track to (potentially) double the sales of previous handhelds and I think the growth in the home console market could be similar in size. I really have doubts that the PS3 and XBox 360 will be able to see combined sales of more than (about) 120 Million units, and I really have doubts that the Wii could see less than 120 Million units sold.

I feel you're right about the Xbox 360 but the Sony Playstation is a huge namebrand for well over a decade now. Both previous Playstation consoles sold well over 100 million and I don't see the Playstation brand dropping so far that it couldn't do somewhere in the range of my guess (73 million). I just don't see it dropping off that fast. And with the sales of the PS and PS2 both over 100 million, there must have been a lot of casual gamers who bought it. I think the same thing will happen as they won't completely ignore the PS3.

And any system that is successful and around for a few years always sells consoles over the life of it's cycle. So while early adopters may have bought the PS3 or 360 already, there are many who are waiting for further price drops. Many people don't want to pay more than $400 for a console. The 360 has dropped to a reasonable price and has seen an increase in sales. The same will happen to the PS3 when they get down to a similar price range.

About the Wii, I don't see a sales drop so much as it's more a matter of it saturating the market. There are only so many people interested in getting a video game console so at some point, the sales will slow slightly. I just feel that the other two systems will also sell more closing the gap slightly and that's why the Wii won't get over 50%. It's just my opinion and I could very well be wrong. The actual numbers I gave were just a guess and I don't in any way rule out the Wii selling more than my guess. Afterall, it was just a guess. Maybe they reach 150 million and I definitely won't mind.

By July 2012 in millions of units:

Wii: 150~170
PS3: 55~81
Xbox360: 56~82

How I came to those numbers... well I just added up what the Wii is trending versus the PS2 then looked back to find the trend vs DS that The Source mentioned then related the first three years plus one to the DS and further related the sales of the PS3 to the Wii and it's current growth rate was further related to the Xbox360.

I guess you could say that the Wii number is based on PS2 and DS numbers and the ps3 numbers is based on the PS3 vs Wii numbers for the last 2 years, and the Xbox360 is based on the PS3 vs Xbox360.

This is all without the magical negative sales effect and the random boost in HD consoles and stand still of the Wii.

The left number is lowest the right is highest also it's totally possible for the Wii to reach it's lowest but the Xbox360 to reach it's highest. ^_^ But I think the Wii will probably just by looking at America more than 150% the Xbox360 eventually similar to how it's doing that to the PS3.