Although PS3 absolute numbers aren't bad at all, XB360 are much greater, more than double currently and Wii's ones are just insane, so PS3 numbers are small relatively to competition, the result is that at the current rates Wii could slowly (because being already quite close to the limit the curve is quite flat) come to exceed 53%, that's an incredible achievement considering MS was never so strong and PS3, despite being last, is doing quite well for its price.

We aren't at the apocalyptic disruption predicted by Malstrom, HD consoles still have more than 50% and should the current trend stay, they'd end this gen at almost 50% anyway, but Wii's lead so early in its life is amazing, it didn't disrupt the old market, it created a new one that thrives next to the old one. I wouldn't be surpriised at all if this gen would end with total numbers 60-80million higher than the previous.

I don't understand your first paragraph...

All he's really saying is that the Wii is currently selling over 53% of all consoles and if this continues, it would eventually reach about 53% total sales.

However, the holiday season is not the time to perform such an analysis as sales of all consoles are not ordinary at all. And it doesn't make sense to look at the short term (ie: a week) especially when weekly sales at VGC could easily be 10% off.

Let's look at the numbers during the 'dead' part of the year while Wii production is still very high -- the Wii could very easily be getting 60% of the total sales world wide in February, for example, if Nintendo lets the supply out.

To reach 50%, the Wii literally needs to outsell the 360 and PS3 combined by 2.78 million. 

50% = Wii - (Xbox 360 + PS3) +2.78

What period does that 53% correspond to? You'd probably get vastly different results depending on whether you used the latest weeks, a few months or a year.

Sorry, I think phrases in italian, much more convoluted than in other languages: if I'm right guessing what you didn't understand, I was saying that very high Wii numbers added to the fact that PS3 numbers, although not bad, are very low compared to competitors, made Wii's weekly sales share jump higher. While before XB360+PS3 managed to often exceed 50% weekly sales, now PS3 hasn't grown as much as the others, so, although XB360 grew to unprecedented values, as Wii too did, XB360+PS3 fell under 50%.

Gotcha. Thanks.

And I don't really buy the original argument, but c'est la vie.

Very hypothetical: if the current trend reached this week wasn't a spike, but a consolidated growth and were kept long enough... This is quite unlikely, as it'almost sure now that in March or April Sony will cut PS3 price making it sell better than now compared to competitors, but nevertheless what Wii achieved now is quite noticeable, considering it doesn't have the price advantage over XB360 anymore. The fact that even the third, PS3, has good numbers,  comparable to last year's same period, makes me think that Wii, other than getting some previous Sony fans, managed to attract a lot of brand new users to gaming market, so that at the end of this gen Wii could have sold more than 100million and XB360+PS3, whichever the ratio between them, too, giving a total for the current gen higher than 200million.

If the current trend weren't kept after Xmas, what we'are seeing now makes one think that thanks to this Xmas sales Wii could reach 50% and keep it, anyway, although it would be a different curve than asymptotic growth.

Although you are right about this not being the most appropriate period to evaluate trends, current numbers are so crazy that this Xmas sales weight on the total will be even heavier than normal, so that results achieved at the end of this year will take longer than in the past to be shifted by subsequent sales trends.

Granted, but your original statement concerned the long-term trend of this generation. Whether this holiday season will postpone or hasten that trend is immaterial to the overall point.

Using all of 2008's currently available data, the Wii has sold 53.7% of all next-gen consoles, worldwide.

So because of that ratio (53.7%), we can assume that the Wii should eventually get to that point.

Mind you, the total of 2007's numbers had the Wii at 51.1% of total console sales - so it's margin has actually increased this year over last year's, as of today. However, one should note that the Wii was at 52.0% on the same week last year, so it dropped by 0.9% in December. If the same trend occurred, the Wii may make it to 52.8% on the year.

Of course, it could go the other way - only one of the 2 HD systems got a price cut this year (X360) versus both getting price cuts before Christmas last year (X360 in August, PS3 in October/November).