People had been saying for awhile and, correct me if I am wrong, but I think even the Source said [for awhile] that Wii would pass the 360 and then shortly thereafter 360 could take back the lead. 

I was thinking about this scenario today and by calculating things in my head I figured the Wii would have a lead of about 700k which is damn close to your guess of 800k when Halo hits.  I don't know what sort of hardware boosts the original Halos gave, but with no support from Japan and only slight support from Others, it just does not seem possible that the 360 could ever take back the lead once it is gone.  The 360 would have to sell 500k units a week for three weeks straight just to take it back and that seems ridiculously high to me.  I think come August 19 we will be seeing the Wii in the lead indefinitely and most likely permanently.

As for industry implications I don't see it being huge.  I am not sure, but I don't think Nintendo will announce anything at all until October when shipment numbers come out because otherwise it is just too unofficial, but that's just my opinion.  I think the industry trend is already playing out of developers switching resources and that will just continue to snowball.  I think the biggest impact it will ever have is people at the forum will have a big party

Does this take into account owners of multiple consoles?
You mention that the release of Madden will have an effect on the sales of 360 (and Wii) but what of those that have both of these consoles? Will they prefer the graphics of Madden on the 360 or the controls on the Wii?
What percentage of households will have both consoles? Even if they are not owned by the same person, say in a shared house I would think only one copy of Madden would be bought.
Does the release of a particular game have THAT much of an effect on hardware sales? Surely those wanting an 360 would have already bought one rather than waitingwaitingwaiting just for Halo 3?

JRI.

I'm hoping the 360 can take back the lead, and that the PS3 will eat into Wii sales in Japan.

The Wii is fine & dandy, however I don't like the prospect of it killing the 360 & PS3.

Good stuff Source.

I'm glad to see home-boy John Lucas finally getting some street-cred around here for his, seemingly lofty, predictions.

"When it happens, I suspect a number of 3rd parties will finally wake up to some of the realities of the current market."

I think we are already there. It takes roughly a year to produce a mediocre Wii game, so by the time Christmas comes rolling around, we will start to see some of the third party games spilling over the levy. 2008 is the year to watch in regards to third party titles, and as a result, I'm with Billy Pidgeon in saying the Wii is sold out till 2009.

You make it sound like X360 and PS3 will up and die if Wii takes the lead.

 People, some of you that is, need to learn that there is plenty of market for all 3 consoles. PS2 dominated last gen but did Xbox and GC roll over and die? No. So why expect X360 and PS3 to roll over and die if Wii just takes a lead (not even considering PS2 like domination)?

The Source, another great breakdown.  I haven't down any breakdowns like that here yet but they'd come close to mirroring your own work anyway. 

Source, what do you suspect the breakdown for the PS3 will be during that time?

If Nintedo does sell 19+ million units overall by the end of the year, I'll be surprised, only due to the comment nintendo made about shortages. That could be something that could hinder them when it comes to later this year, depending on how limited it is and if they run into any delays. But yea, The Wii will get the lead here soon, and then hold onto it throughout the year, even against the Halo release and the 360.

@ Sqrl

I agree, the Wii can no way crack 20 million by the end of the year. As much as I love my little white box, it will get about 18 million tops, by December 31st 2007.

Btw another great analysis the Source... 

jj for PS3... 

I had it at 7.5 to 8.0 million lifetime (in the hands of gamers) by the end of 2007, but I may have to revise it a bit.  It should do comparably to 360's first 14 months (both had a USA Nov-Dec launch + full year) - since both have 2 holidays to work with, and both were supply constrained initially.  PS3 will do a bit better in Europe/Others, not as well in the Americas (although had the lineup this year been - GTA4, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, GH III, Rockband, Metal Gear Solid 4, Ratchet & Clank, and Madden, Heavenly Sword, and Lair PS3 sales probably could have beaten 360 in 2007) and over 1.25 million better than 360 in Japan through December 2007.

I'd say that right now I'm leaning toward a split like this:  Americas - 3.5-3.75 million/ Others - 2.15-2.30 million/ Japan - 1.5 - 1.8 million.  Something along the lines of 7.15-7.85 million, probably right about 7.5 million (360 did 7.6 million in the same period a year earlier).

PS3 actually may move more units worldwide in March/April than this November (which is pretty amazing if you ask me) if a pricedrop coincides with Metal Gear Solid 4 and GTA 4 worldwide.

As for Wii reaching 19 million this year...Nintendo thinks it can ship 16.5 million Wiis from April 1 2007 to March 31 2008.  Nintendo shipped 5.84 million Wiis through March 31 2007.  That would mean 22.34 million Wiis shipped (in total) by March 31 2008.  There is some lag due to stockpiling and over/under estimating demand certain weeks, but I expect Nintendo to have shipped 20 million by December 31 - which is a nice round number to brag about to investors.  Of those 20 million, 19 million or so will be in the hands of gamers (95% of shipments, similar to the June 30 ratio - 8.88 Wiis sold to gamers total vs. the 9.27 million shipment total that Vgchartz data vs. Nintendo showed through June 30).  I think what Nintendo realizes is that it will not satiate demand by reaching 20 million shipped by December 31, 2007 - which is why Nintendo put out statements about Wii's likelihood of being sold out this year.

Once the 20 million shipped marker is reached in 2007, Nintendo will either cut supply at some time in late winter 2008 because they met their shipment goals without being able to produce more.  But, if Nintendo keeps shipping more it will be because additional manufacturing plants were online in time.  The former is what happened earlier this year in late March/early April 2007 - Wii had it's lowest sales of the year because Nintendo had effectively met it's shipping target (5.84 vs. 6.00 is less than 3% off) and decided to save any extra production for the next fiscal year.  I think Nintendo will raise it's forecasts again for Wii (as has already been done) meaning that the 16.5 million they new expect to ship will be closer to 18 million from April 1 to march 31.

The sales cross-over, what does it mean?

In short it means that the Wii will continue to do well, and will continue to attract a fat amount of 3rd party support.

For the 360, its lower sales can't help at all. I think that the most likely candidate for any of the big 3 to do rather poorly this generation is in fact the 360 since it has shown little momentum lately in terms of sales, product enhancement, and to some degree it has been lacking with attracting 3rd party support to the favor of the PS3 more so than 5 or 6 months ago.

The most recent announcement of the $50 price cut sounds like a worrysome signal, which tells me that while they are cutting the price $50, they just dont have the money right now ( with the enormous cost of refurbing) to bump the price cut up to $75 or $80, which was what they initially seemed to be thinking about if you guys remember the first reports of the 360s price cut.

In fact, there have been calls from MS's shareholders to sell off the game making division, meaning that the shareholders think that at this point, the profitability of the 360 might not materialize for quite a while, perhaps until Q2 or Q3 2008. Keep in mind that the Falcon/added heatsink version of the 360 will not solve their refurb problems immediately. Because so many easily overheated 360s are on the market, they will have problems for quite a while. It may take until the end of 2008 for this not to be such an issue for MS, meanwhile Nintendo and Sony will be able to put their earnings towards more useful ventures, ie more game development, product development (home, BD, DVR etc) or a pricecut ( more likely for the PS3 than the Wii because of the wii's upstart success.

So, in terms of hardware, the 360 won't have a lot of forward momentum, as it just won't have enough tools and budgetable resources to compete with the Wii/PS3. Software sales should remain very good for the 360, as well as its online sales.

On a sidenote, this whole game thing for MS seems pretty unusual for me. Microsoft has traditionally been a software company, that is what they are good at, that is what they know best. Console gaming is a lot more than just taking care of your software, as they are painfully finding out with the feared RROD problem. I think that MS should make this generation its last foray into console gaming and instead possibly get into the software side of gaming more than it has been. MS is overall a very good company, with the size to dominate whatever it gets into, but this whole console gaming thing has been the clumsiest performance that I could possibly see.

Well, MS is not exactly short on cash, it's just trying to put on a show for investors to justify the continuation of the Xbox brand in the face of PS3's relative failure this generation.

At this point it would take a minor miracle for PS3 to become a true set-top box threat to PC, which is one of MS' main reasons for entering the market. So the Xbox division is trying to justify its ongoing existance by making a profit for a change.

If PS3 suddenly started performing a lot better, MS would respond, don't doubt it.

As it stands, Nintendo is lucky that MS doesn't really seem too serious about competing with Wii.