Sigh... The Wii does not compete with the 360/PS3. It's a different market. Consider 360 sales in its first year of release before the Wii was out, and sales in the years since the Wii was released. It's basically the same.

In the long term the Wii will help 360/PS3 sales. The Wii is not intimidating and easy to get into, but as soon as any of these 'new' gamers want to start playing 'serious' games, they need a 360/PS3 (or PC) to do so. If it wasn't for the Wii many of them probably never would have got into gaming, so for this reason M$ and $ony should thank Nintendo.

As far as 360/PS3 goes I think PS3 weekly sales will leapfrog 360 sales sometime this year (PS3 price drop will determine the magnitude) and the gap will widen continuously after that. It's quite obvious if you consider that the cheapest 360 is half the price of a PS3 at the moment yet their only selling 5% or so (worldwide weekly sales) more 360's than PS3's. Also the ridiculous failure rate due to M$'s unethical 360 product strategy has driven many consumers away and will continue to do so.

Sigh... The PS3 does not compete with the 360/Wii. It's a different market. Consider 360 sales in its first year of release before the PS3 was out, and sales in the years since the PS3 was released. It's basically the same.

I mean seriously.  You do realize the PS3 and Wii came out at like... the same time.

You are entitled to your opinion, but when analyzing this, consider actual numbers versus ratios; the PS3 lead in Japan MAY BE 3:1, but it actually only accounts for a 2 Million user base lead.  The US 360 lead is only about 2:1, but accounts for a ~9 million user base lead... 

So why would Japanese developers have more incentive to ignore the 360 (when the difference is only 2M) but US developers would not (with a ~9M difference)?

Caveats:  I am not ignoring the "Others" areas; but the ratio there is basically 1:1.  Also, I'm not arguing that the PS3 is doomed, just stating why I think your first analysis, might need some tweaking.

PS3 fans always talk about PS3 with its next price cut will shoot for the stars nd sell just like PS2 and Wii and leave the X360 behind. Hearing that stuff over and over is classic lulz.

PS2 in Japan sold 23 million in comparison to XBox sold only 500k units. (46 to 1 in PS2 favour). Rest of the world accounts for 110 million PS2 against 25 million XBox.

This generation in Japan PS3 has sold 3 million compared to X360 selling 1 million. (3 to 1 in PS3 favour, PS3 selling at 5 times the rate of XBox 360 in Japan) Rest of the word accounts for 19 million PS3s against 29 million XBox 360s. 10 million more XBox 360s than PS3s in rest of the world excluding Japan.

Say a game sells 100,000 copies for every 1 million units of a console.

On PS3 in Japan, this game would sell 300,000 units.

On 360, it would sell 100,000 units.

On PS3 in NA, it would sell 838,000 units

On 360 in NA, it would sell 1.7 million units.

So you are, of course, correct. They are making an extra 850k sales for the 360 in NA, and only 200k for the PS3 in Japan.

Now tell me, how many third parties do you see making exclusive first person shooters for the PS3?

Just Haze. And how did that turn out for them?

Western developers make games for mainly western audiences. The 10 million sales gap for X360 over PS3 has a huge say in developers deciding on what platform to make their games available to western audienes ie outside of Japan.

Japanese developers make games for mainly Japanese audiences the 2 million lead PS3 has over X360 is not really significant at the moment. Microsoft in Japan is trying to disrupt the momentum of PS3 in Japan and they are doing the best they can and they have the financial resouirces to buy Japanes exclusive games or timed exlusiivity from time to time.

Some games made in the west never launch in the Japan because they would not sell. On the other hand some Japanese games would not appear in the west because they would not sell outside of Japan.

I don't know if Nintendo thought it would be on top. But I think it realized that it would be further behind if it did not do something differently. And the DS showed that you could be different AND successful.

Mike from Morgantown

yes it will be a huge i told u so come winter 09 and onwards for the ps3 just click the on the word explode in my sig to see wat will happen come winter 09 the ps3 will do exactly wat u said
"just gonna blow this whole war away"

Who made that rumour? You? I heard a rumour that the 720 is coming out late this year and 360 will be killed off.

I'm gonna laugh so hard when PS3 doesn't get a pricecut this year, while all the fanboys are demanding it. :p And I'm gonna laugh even harder when PS3 eventually does get a pricecut but fails to significantly and consistently increase its sales. :p