Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred mintutes... How do you measure the life of the Wii.

I was going to post the exact same thing, except it will more then likely grow min 60% - 110%.

A few things we must all take into consideration when looking at growth of the industry:

1. The population is growing at such a fast rate. in 1961, earths population was only 3 billion people! in just 38 years - 1999 we doubled our population, and every year our populations growth gets faster.

Back in 2000, when PS2 came out, the population was only 6 billion. It is actually now a tad over 6.7 billion, that's a 700 Million population growth over the last 7 years. and by the time this gen is over (7 years X 2.2% growth average per year) - it will reach 7.8 billion or even more.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population (Has all links to correct info, wont post all links here though, just click the ref links for yourself).

2. When I was a kid, we had 1 console between 5 of us, now we have all grown up and have families of our own, 3 of us each have a console. (and I'm sure my sis will get her son a console too). so that went from 1 console between us to 3 consoles (Soon to be 4) over the PS1/PS2/PS3 generation. - My wife had 1 console between her, her sis and her brother, now her brother has one and we have one and her sis wants to get a Wii too, so there's growth in purchases of consoles on both sides of our families.

So Kids who owned a PS2 between siblings will more then likely be able to afford a new-gen console for themselves, increasing the total amount of consoles sold.

3. Since last generation was a lul time for growth, (30%), this generation has a much greater chance of being a 100% growth. I would be suprised if it is anything less then 60 - 70% growth but would expect a 80 - 110% (90% average) growth.

150 - 195 mil + 65% = 247 - 320 Mil

150 - 195 mil + 90% = 285 - 370 Mil

So by estimates, the leading console SHOULD be able to be almost, if not more then double the size of the last gen leader. Or at least hit 200 mil min.

EDIT - Oh damn, one last thing I forget to mention:

4. if Nin increased production to 2.5 million units per month over 7 years, they would manufacture 210 Million units over that time. How much DS' are they manufacturing curently? I don't see it that hard for Nintendo to increase production to 2.5 even 3 million and more next year if sales are still selling hugely come march 08, and then with a price drop and add ins...

I have read alot of people's posts on this 240M figure, a lot of you are saying that it is possible, but lets not forget John Lucas' exact wording, 240M is the absolute MINIMUM the wii will do this generation. That is, if everything went wrong for Nintendo from here on in, the wii will still sell 240M. Ridiculous, are you insane or on drugs, i can quite easily see a scenario in which the wii only reaches 50-60M, Mr Lucas, are you telling me you cant see a scenario where the wii sells less than 240M, if you cant you are blind.

Yeah, I agree with you. If nintendo do stuff things up or IF, and I take the IF very lightly, the wii fad wears off then yeah, 50 - 60 mil isn't out of the question.

Hopefully though Nintendo do everything right and I believe we will find out just how right or wrong they are doing things come this Christmas period and 1 Jan 08 will tell us a lot.

JohnLucas 1uped in your own thread by SSJ! How embarrassing!

I have a feeling Nintendo will stick with the Wii for a loooooong time. They are already proving that better graphics have no influence on them. The only thing that could force them to move early is if they got out-innovated, and I don't see anyone who is going to do that. Nintendo is obviously on a different plane of thought than the rest of the industry, between Brain Age, Nintendogs, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, etc. Another console maker coming up with merely one such industry-redefining mega-hit may mean nothing to Nintendo if they're rolling out one every year.

And who says they won't? The Wii gives them far more freedom than the DS, because they can bring out almost any kind of peripheral. Some people thought Wii Sports was a "tech demo" and Nintendo would spend the next 5 years "proving the Wiimote." Instead, Nintendo are churning out three new peripherals with the gun, the steering wheel and the balance board all in a short time frame. I'm sure they have more than those three cooked up.

The thing that will cause Nintendo to replace Wii is when they have a market-expanding idea that the Wii is incapable of. Even then, the Wii should keep selling long after it's successor comes out, especially if it's dirt cheap by then, and it's own most recent market-expanders aren't done their expanding.

And so if Wii is Nintendo's main console for 7 years, and it sells at the rate DS is selling now (30 million/year), and then has life after that for at least 3 years (like most winning consoles do), then well over 200 million might not be so crazy.

People suggesting that production issues will last for the whole life of the console should be predicting sales well north of 240M.

I have to say, Leo, I'm a little bit confused as to why you have the PS3's total if the Wii wins as a higher number than the Wii's total if the PS3 wins. The amount of momentum going right now would seem to suggest the opposite.

I agree with The Source most. I think the Wii is looking at phenomenal lifetime sales of 140 million +, but if the market grows huge, there really is the potential for something like 240 million. That doesn't mean that the PS3 or 360 won't do well. I just think the market is going to nearly (if not completely) double this generation between the 3 systems. Leaving the PS3 and 360 with something like 60 million each (a great number).

If that were the case, the Wii would have to sell 24 million a year for 10 years. That's not happening for any console. Or 48 million for 5 years....

Ultimately, I think it is fairly optimistic to expect the Wii to break into a range of sales which is larger than the combined sales of Consoles and Handhelds in the previous generation. I was very careful not to use the word impossible though because there are reasons to believe that the Wii could encourage growth in the industry in both existing and new markets.

In the current market around the world the primary demographic videogames are sold to is young single males between the ages of 13 and 35. Within this narrow demographic videogame usage is not ubiquitous, and lots of young males choose not to play videogames because they're too inactive and not social. What this means is that videogames are really only selling to (roughly) 20% to 25% of people in existing markets.

Over the past couple of years there has been massive growth in India and China which has resulted in more and more households having the money to be able to afford "Expensive" ($100 to $200) electronics; and many of these households have a desire to own these electornics as a way of showing off. Piracy is a huge issue in these markets but this would impact software sales far more than hardware sales (and it is possible that a company could reduce the quantity of piracy).