The following is my analysis based on current trends and how things panned out last gen, which was pretty much similar to the gen before that and the gen before that .... and so on.

NOTES:
Yearly mapping is not exact, it is approximate to make it easier for me to get totals. So, "2nd Nov to 1st Nov" means 2nd week of November of XXXX year to 1st week of November the following year.

We can see a couple of things from last gen that are pretty important indicators of what will happen. By the 3rd year the 3rd place console will start to die off. It is inevitable and has happened in every generation. Thus, PS3's 4th year (as there is no realistic possible way it will catch 360 this year) it will start to fall off quickly.

Also, note that when the "next gen" starts the losing consoles take a much bigger drop than the leader. PS2 actually sold more that year than in the previous year when 360 launched. However, GC and xbox dropped by more than 50% each.

Finally, we note that the leader dropped significantly when the next gen was in full swing and then continued to steadily decline for the remainder of its life. I arbitrarily stopped at 10 years even though history has proven the leaders continue to sell after that.

With that taken into account I projected the remaining years of this gen's cycle. I have the neXtBox and possibly PS4 coming out fall of 2011 and WiiHD and possibly PS4 coming a year or so later. By that time the losers of this gen will have stopped all production as has happened in every generation before.

One item of interest is it is obvious that if 360 did not have that year head start, it would not be in 2nd place and probably would not have been able to steal many or any of the exclusives it did throughout the last year.

ah, all the work I put into summing up those totals and adding pretty colors for the fanboys and nothing?

The format looks complicated(and is unexplained), so alot of people won't bother try to understand what you're saying.

I don't disagree, except maybe you're being too generous to the PS3. I don't see it moving that many systems this year without a price cut, and I do not believe it will get a significant price cut.

ok, I tried to format the table better. Honestly, I don't know what's so hard to understand.

Each column is how many units it sold/will sell in the nth year it was available.

So Wii's first year it sold 13.8m units.

I think your ending the generation too early this will be the longest generation for all three parties involved. 2012 will be the soonest any of them should come out;


ive said this many times if any of them release before 2012 there will be backlash that would most likely lead to a crash this will not only come from the general buying public, but devs, whos asset libraries will be devalued. it would not be good for the industry right now.

we are in actually a pretty good place for all three with software sales being what they are sometime next year all three should put up proffits and continue to do so till the end of the generation. sony will be the last to post profits form its game division, and depending on how many units they move form now until the cut (march earliest), software could even offset a small loss per console basis.


on top of that there currently on going major revisions in board and ram design the like of which havent been seen since the mid 90s, this shift should be more defined by 2012 with techs less risky. it also gives time for ISPs to be upgraded and allow for smoother download of full games which is something devs want to kill the resale market (though rental of the game from a download is most likely a devs wet dream rentals on music and games make fortunes)

honestly the only one that could benifit from ending early is nintendo, since they have traditionaly made a profit out of the gate, making people upgrade would just be more cash for them, but killing a cash cow (the wii) is always dangerous

@goddog

I think your wrong on the after 2012 idea for the simple reason as my table shows above.

MS will realize two very important things from this gen:
1. They only really beat Sony due to their year head start. That gave them the edge in numbers and allowed them to reduce their costs quicker and have leverage when approaching 3rd parties.

2. They believe Wii's success is totally due to the casual audience.

MS will want to combine Nintendo's success in #2 with their proven success in #1 and beat everyone to the punch. Plus, by then the 360 will begin to naturally trail off as all consoles have done in their 4/5th years.

MS will bring a new system out by fall of 2011. The only question is if Sony decides to ditch the PS3 early to ensure #1 doesn't happen to them again.

I like it how you think the 360 will die one year before the PS3, but is still more popular than the PS console.

And I think both HD console will easily break 50 millions

I feel your betting too much on the past this current generation will be longer as a sign of a maturing market mixed with the economic down turn. launching new consoles is an expensive and risky business. the money in making consoles comes from the licenses (unless your nintendo) and fees. this will lend to a longer console generation especially since microsoft has, and sony will stop taking hits on selling units.

It makes no business sense to force a new generation early unless you are losing money on hardware, and not making enough up in licensing. 

that is the key. and right now all of the players are headed for profit. and lengthening this generation will also help game studios in their  profitability. being able to reuse assets and refine code and not having to spend money developing code from scratch. it benefits every one to keep this generation going in the business side.

now we are already seeing this generation taking a different turn year 4 will see growth for all consoles and year 5 should too, most of this will be due to higher start costs that translate into a longer term ability to cut costs. 

even the wii has defied these normal gen traditions by avoiding price cut in the first 3 years and continuing to grow. I see them as the one group that could launch early if they wanted to based on a tradition of selling hardware at profit. 

all of this excludes what an early launch might do to the mind of a consumer which still sees these as new goods and an untimely replacement could cause backlash

I had a cool chart of what MS and sony could do this year made up sometime last fall i look for it after i get back and post it in here 

but but sony said 10 years.....

So your saying that PS3 isn't on a 10 year plan, also that the Wii is on a 10 year plan. V_V

My question is why 10 years, why not 11 or 9...

Anyway interesting to say the least, seems like you have all 3 systems peaking in the same year except the Xbox360 which you seem to have peaking in it's 4th year. V_V