million seller games
ps2:199
wii: 29
from vgchartz numbers
one word ''variety''

There are two ways to draw a userbase for a product. One is to have a highly diverse line of many products to draw in customers from many diverse interests. The other is to have a highly universal line of a select few products to draw in as many customers as possible by means of pandering to the similarities in their tastes. Neither is particularly more effective than the other, though the latter is a lot less expensive and tends to result in seemingly impossible sales numbers for those universal products.

I don't think I need to point out that the PS2 used the former strategy to great effect, while the Wii is using the latter strategy to great effect...

@Sky Render

Taking a guess, what do you think are some possible steps Nintendo will take with their next home system?

Not in it's first two years, though.

Predicting Nintendo's next move is an infuriatingly difficult task in spite of knowing the rules they're following, a bit like trying to predict how somebody is going to throw a rock-paper-scissors move before you've even seen the person or started the game. Ostensibly your odds of getting it right are okay if you know the rules, but still pretty low and mostly just guessing.

All that said, I don't think a lot of people understand just what Nintendo is doing, or why the Wii is experiencing unchallenged market growth. The answer is, as it was when the NES came onto the scene, staring us in the face. And like then, the failure to acknowledge a certain key fact is why nobody sees it. Let's look at what happened back in the late 1980s.

When the NES came out, computer manufacturers thought they were competing against it, and didn't understand how such an underpowered computer that doesn't even come with a keyboard or monitor could be trouncing their systems. What they failed to realize was that the NES wasn't competing with computers at all; it was opening an entirely new segment of the market where the standards expected of a computer didn't apply.

The same thing is happening again, of course. Console manufacturers Sony and Microsoft think they're competing against the Wii, and don't understand how something so outclassed specs-wise is trouncing them. As with the NES, the incumbents fail to see that the Wii is not competing with consoles, it's opened an entirely new segment of the market where the standards expected of a console don't apply.

The short of this is that the Wii has no competition in the same sense that the NES had no competition until the Sega Master System came out. The values which are embodied by the Wii are not embodied at all by the 360 or PS3. This is important to understand, because in an environment of no same-value competition, a product holds a monopoly on its market segment. And when this happens, the longer it takes for same-value competition to emerge, the greater their advantage remains.

What this all adds up to is, the longer it takes for the Wii to get a true competitor, the longer it's going to live. Nintendo might not even have to make a truly new system until as late as 2026, though that's extremely unlikely and would require the entire industry to basically give up, give in, and let Nintendo rule the roost unchallenged; even in the NES days that didn't happen.

On the other end of the spectrum, if same-value competition came out tomorrow, the Wii's lifespan would be cut short no matter what Nintendo did to keep its competitive edge, and we'd likely see its mainstream halcyon days fade a few years early (2012 or so instead of 2016 or so). It would also prompt Nintendo to get things ready for releasing a new system. What I can assure you, because Iwata has clarified it at least three times now, is that the next Nintendo system will similarly defy existing standards and basically "kill" the Wii and its competitors.

I have no way of predicting what that specifically will be, however. If it were predictable, it wouldn't be disruptive, and Nintendo would be in really big trouble.

Sky, Iwata said Nintendo´s next system will kill the competition?...As in really kill, drive them out of the market?

"Kill" as in do the same thing that the NES did to home computers designed for gaming, and what the Wii is slowly but surely doing to non-Wii consoles. That is to say, it will make the entire formula behind the Wii look very dated and embarrassing to the mainstream (which is no small task, I might add; the mainstream tend to be quite happy to settle with something that's "good enough"). That's their plan, anyway. We have to wait and see if what they come up with is sufficiently disruptive and sufficiently mainstream-appealing.

At this rate? By a large margin. But I don't think it will have nearly the same ammount of quality titles (for me at least) of each genre like the PS2 did. I can't think of anyone who doesn't like at least one game on the PS2. I can think of a LOT of people who will not like ANY game on the Wii when this gen is over. But that will probably be more out of fanboyism than personal preference... Ah forget everything I just said. Yes the Wii will beat the Ps2...

Great analysis you provided there...anyway, you, and everyone else, is well aware the Wii is so far lacking in a big number of 3rd party blockbuster hits, something all previous market leaders had.....with that, do you think this will probably be rectified with Nintendo´s next system, since 3rd parties will probably want to take advantage of the advantage Nintendo will have when going into the 8th gen?

It will happen, but not for a few more years. The Wii will maintain the hype: how can it fail to, when it is the only console that actually enables better games over the previous generation? While its competitors fester in their glorified reskins of 10-year-old games, the Wii is actually driving gaming forward, and that is the key to its success.