As most of you know by now, Nintendo has shipped 9.27 million Wii units by June 30, 2007.  On the market for a year longer, Microsoft has shipped 11.6 million Xbox 360 units by June 30, 2007.

Sell through difference is likely around 600,000 lifetime (once Japanese data for the week ending July 22 comes in) at the moment.  Cross over looks to be in 2-3 weeks.

In the coming weeks, Nintendo should continue to see strong sales of Wii as Mario Party 8 (Japan), Mario Strikers (Americas) and others continue to boost sales.  Come August, Madden - for all systems, Metroid & Bioshock, and a number of small games should boost both Wii & 360.

Rumours of a 360 pricedrop may boost 360 sales in the Americas, but with no presence in Japan, and only a decent/not spectacular footprint in Europe, 360 would have to sell roughly 2.5x as much as Wii in the Americas to offset stronger Wii sales in Europe & Japan over the course of a month.

Halo 3 & GTA IV will certaintly be huge, but I imagine Nintendo will drop some bombs in Japan to make sure it is not outsold those weeks worldwide - whether those bombs are Galaxy (Japan), Brawl (Japan), Wii Fit (in Japan this year), Crystal Chronicles, Mario & Sonic, Nights (~400k on Saturn in Japan - Wii is actually successful),  DDR, Opoona, Zack & Wiki, etc.

My point is, that since Nintendo expects to ship 22.34 million Wiis by March 31, 2008, it is not unreasonable to expect sales of 19-20 million by the end of 2007.  If sales are stronger than expected (a distinct possibility), Wii could pass 20 million by the end of 2007 - and Nintendo would have to raise forecasts again (which would happen in October).

A Halo 3/GTAIV/Blue Dragon/Call of Duty 4/Rockband/Guitar Hero III USA holiday for the 360 is certaintly capable of 2+ million units in December.  But given Nintendo that will have at least two of big three (Mario, Brawl, Metroid) out in all territories by the end of 2007 - along with ancillary hits such as Wii Health, Wii Play, GHIII, DDR, Zack & Wiki, Nights, Mario & Sonic and others - I suspect Wii can easily double 360 holiday sales in Nov-December.

While Sony has not released their updated outlook just yet, I now expect:

Wii - 2007 - 20 million (lifetime sales,   ~17 million in 2007)

Xbox 360 - 2007 - 14.5 million (lifetime sales,  ~7 million in 2007)

PS3 - 2007 - 7.5 million (life time sales,  ~ 6 million in 2007)

No.

(Speaking for myself.)

sidenote: Care to venture a guess on whether Nintendo's estimates are conservative? I.e., they actually ship 23-24 million units by the end of fiscal year?

I ask because my projections had the Wii selling roughly 17.25m by Jan 2008, and 20.5m by April 2008. I tend to err on the conservative side myself, so honestly, and upwards revision of the sort they made should move my projections past the ~22.5m ship target they announced. 

Ditto except I would bump the PS3 to around 6.5m. I think the "price cut" will have a decent impact. And I would probably put my Wii prediction at 19-20m.

Wii will absolutley pass the 360.

It has to before september though, If it doesnt then it might have a problem trying to.

there is basically no chance of that happening although I didn't see many people saying it wouldn't happen.
Halo is coming out September 25th right? 360 is probably barely gonna outsell Wii for one week if at all, and by the time Halo is released the Wii will probably have built up a lead of 500k or at least 300k. After seeing Nintendo's revised shipments it's gonna be impossible to not be ahead at the end of the year.

Also when did Microsoft say they shipped 10.4 million? Wasn't that last october or something? By June they only shipped an extra 1.2 million removing all doubt if they stuffed the channel or not and silencing fanboys (although not many of them on this forum) saying 360 had sold 11 million (some were saying that last year).

Both systems certainly have major titles to publish this year, and I see a bit of an interval competition for the both of them in regards to the numbers.

I think the race for 360 and Wii this holiday will be a photo finish.

360 has the stockpiles of consoles readily available for this season, and depending on how many people, especially kids, out there want a 360 for Xmas despite the hardware problems, 360 could have the upper hand simply based on readily available hardware numbers.

It's a bit foggy right now as sales have declined some due to the announcements and admittance of problems from MS, but I think the likes of Halo and GTA will convince some, along with the three year warranty, to risk playing a system that will die at some point. Also I'm not sure who MS is trying to fool as "the general public" will only be buying the 360's this fall because their kids are harping at their parents for one from Santa.

I think the Wii will only be able to vault over the 360 permanently this year if Nintendo has been stockpiling Wii's for the last several months, and continues until the holiday season.

It's not like Nintendo selling out this holiday is going to be news. They will have a nice notch in their belt to claim virtual sell out for an entire year though. The problem for them to over take the 360 collectively will be having the numbers ready for the shopping sprees.

20 million Wii's sound a little high unless there is any truth to this stockpiling rumor. However Nintendo is apparantly increasing production and I can see them pumping out close to 2 million units by years end so maybe.

Stockpiling is true for sure, we have seen Nintendo selectively increasing supply lately when there are big software releases. Besides, their latest fiscal year estimates indicate the same thing as far as I've seen. Nintendo wants (and will get) a holiday victory, so they have to stockpile.

I think the Wii will definitely pass the 360 (within a month even) but I think 20 million is a pretty generous number. I expect the years end number to be closer to 14-15 million.

I imagine that Nintendo is stockpiling for the holidays because of the following reasons:

1. A lackluster holiday season could cause developers to lose faith in Nintendo. Some developers have only been hesitantly backing Nintendo so far and any signs of weakness may cause some of the fair weather friends to abandon them.

2. If your product is a popular Christmas gift you get a lot of free publicity from the media which will help keep your product in people's minds even after the holidays are over.

3. Some consumers may only consider buying a console at the holidays (e.g. parents buying a console for kids). If you don't sell these people a console this Christmas, you aren't going to get another chance to sell them one until next Christmas. Worse still, they might buy another console instead and stop considering your console.


So it seems to me that holiday sales would be more important than the sales during the rest of the year and that Nintendo would likely be willing to eat the expense of stockpiling Wiis in order to improve their holiday numbers.

Of course, this is just my speculation, but these things seem reasonable enough to me.