I have made a correlation analysis between the last 10 weeks sales of all three consoles, and found out those correlation coefficients:

Wii - X360 : - 0.96

Wii - PS3 : + 0.46

X360 - PS3 : - 0.69

What do those numbers mean? First of all, correlation coefficient must be between -1 and 1.

-1 implies perfect negative correlation.

0 implies no relation at all.

+1 implies perfect positive correlation.

In our analysis Wii-X360, and PS3-X360 have negative correlations, meaning a 1% increase in X360 Sales decreases Wii sales by 0.96 and PS3 by 0.69. However, the analysis suggests a positive correlation between PS3 and Wii (0.46), which is a moderate relationship and should be understood that PS3 is not in direct competition with wii, and their users are mostly mutually exclusive. On the other hand, 360 is in direct competition with both of them, and more so with the Wii, meaning PS3 owners usually dont own a 360, though wii owners are more likely to have a 360, and thus a 360 sale will have a greater effect on Wii. Another explanation means that Wii and 360 users are not mutually exclusive.

Ideas?

Edit:

I have received 30 months of monthly data from "kowenicki" (thanks!), and the results are quite different this time, although still interesting. The correlations are as follows:

Wii - X360 : -0.55
Wii - PS3 : - 0.63
X360 - PS3 : -0.30

First of all, all the signs are negative as it should be, meaning all systems are competing with each other! In other words, any rise in any system steals from the market of the other system.

Secondly, unlike the previous result, the correlation between X360 and Wii, and between PS3 and Wii are not statistically significant, which means, Wii competes with both consoles more or less the same.

The third point, which is quite interesting, is that the least of the competition is between PS3 and X360. Their users are apparently exclusive most of the time, from which we can judge that many non-hardcore PS2 users went to Wii, while hardcore ones chose between 360 and PS3, considering their tastes, and competition didn't affect their decision much.

Last but not Least, we can see that the main competition is between the HD consoles and the wii! Those who are interested can take a look at the excel file below :
http://rapidshare.com/files/259295513/console_correlation.zip

Wow, i've never, ever, EVER, saw someone this ignorant.

The Wii sold 20 mil consoles more than the 360 while being in the market for a year less than it, how can there possibly be a "war" between them?

Interesting stuff. 10 weeks seems like a pretty small window, though. I realize it's asking you to do a bunch more work, and I'll understand if you're not interested, but I'm curious to know if this correlation holds true for say, the same period in 2008. That would precede the 360's latest price cut, and might suggest whether it was that cut that pitted the 360 against the Wii.

@RageBot

You're calling me ignorant? I am simply raising an analysis report here, you my friend. Some unintuitive figures could be facts. You simply go analyze them yourself, if you dont believe in your prejudiced mind. War doesn't mean that it is a balanced war and one side is not dominant! And btw, read it carefully, its not even long!

The Wii doesn't count. The 360 and the PS3 focuses on the same gaming userbase, while the Wii focuses on a new generation of non-gamers. The Wii doesn't count and besides it's not even HD.

@famousringo
Yes, you are right, the study must be based on a greater scale, but I dont know how to sort out the data from the site weekly. Any ideas?

@S.T.A.G.E.
Thats the point of that analysis, which hints the opposite. -0.96 correlation suggests an almost perfect competition between wii and 360, meaning Wii does count from MS perspective. You would intiutively expect the greatest correlation between 360 and PS3 but thats the case here, mostly because they are cutting out each other, and hardcore PS3 fans (consider) buy(ing) wii but not 360.

@ Freedquaker how does it look over a longer term, say 12 months?

This is interesting.

How did you do your analysis?

I don't know how you could bring up the data in a nice table you could copypasta into a spreadsheet. Maybe one of the site admins could lend a hand there.

The best tool I can find is the weekly hardware graph, but it would require some painstaking data entry to get into useable form:

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=All&cons2=PS3&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&start=39551&end=39635

Actually, it might be easier to just pull the numbers out of the hardware table one week at a time:

http://vgchartz.com/hwtable.php

Your the ignorant one, the tc is try to make a point, and its a damn good one.