If you Google the term playstation you get 165 million hits if you do the same search on the term Wii and you get 227 million hits but the term Xbox comes back with 259 million hits

I wonder what that means?

No. You are talking about genericized trademarks. It is not brand recognition, actually it is the opposite. It is used by people who don't even  know that the term is supposed to be a brand name, and not a generic term for the product.

For example, if my mother calls every gaming system a "playstatation", it doesn't mean that she actually recognises the PS brand, she is just uninformed, and believes that since play=gaming and station=console, it is another word for a gaming console. She couldn't even say how a Sony playstation is different from "that xbox playstation", or "that Wii playstation".

Brand recognition IS reflected by current sales, because people who consciously buy the product with the brand that they recognise(Currently "Wii"). 

If Playtation would be more recognised AS A BRAND, (and not as playstations=gaming consoles), it would sell better. 

@Alterego: But that's also about brand familiarity, as in "i know the name somewhere", which can be seen different from brand recognition.

Basically if out of a test group:
10/10 say that they recognise the word "Playstation".
8/10 say that they recognise the word "Wii".
6/10 know what "Playstation" is.
8/10 know what "Wii" is.

I think the above was pretty simple example of the difference.

By the way, i think "Coca-Cola" is a good example of generised trademark, since most people talk about Coke when they mean cola drink (and we have Jaffa meaning all orange lemonades).

Yea, i know what you are talking about. PlayStation brand is seling horrable.

@KylieDog: Yes and no. If someone molests your market while customers think they're buying your products, it's showing that the brand isn't so strong as it should be, since people have problems to relate the brand into the product itself.

No it WAS strong in the market, BEFORE it got genericized. 

Genericization itself is already a sign of the transformation from brand name to a generic word.

Does Aspirin have a strong brand name? Of course not, it is not even a brand name anymore. Once it made someone rich, but now it is just the interesting history of a general term. 

Playstation had the strongest brand in the previous 2 generations. 

If the next generation's all casual consoles Will be referred to as Wiis, I won't keep saying that it is a strong brad for Nintendo. 

That generation's best brand wil be whatever sells the most, and gains the biggest recognition.

So, you are saying there is no such thing as ''the strongest brand''? My brand is stronger this generation, but your brand will be stronger in next generation, and then my brand again next generation...

@BladeOfGod: That's pretty much the idea. Although your second question was pretty much in contradiction with the first one.
Of course there's a strongest brand, but nothing can guarantee the same brand remains the strongest.

Sorry, not second question, i meant example was in contradiction with the question.

This is just me, but I don't hear anyone refer to any besides a PlayStation console as PlayStation. I hear them say the actual name of it, like Xbox or Wii or Genesis. I think Nintendo is actually a stronger brand name than PlayStation (yes it's a brand name, look at their first three consoles in which the word "Nintendo" was part of the official title), but that's just my opinion. I think GameBoy is stronger than PlayStation as well. Besides, the only other gaming system that rivaled the PS2 in sales was the GBA. Not to mention the original GB and its variants are the only non-Sony system to achieve sales of 100 million. So no, I don't think PS is the strongest brand name in video games.