I was updating some of my ongoing sales documents today and I noticed:

Wii, by NPD reached 4.546 million through October 6, 2007 in 11 NPD 'months'.

If Wii sells ~454,000 units in NPD October, then Wii will become the first USA system/portable to reach 5.0 million inside 1 year of launch (12 NPD months = 364 days).

If Wii reaches something like 4.90/4.95 million in October, it will certaintly blow past 5.0 million units in November, month number 13.

PS2 took 14 months in the USA (by NPD) to reach 5.0 million units according to my research.  N64 and Xbox 360 took 16 months in the USA (by NPD) to reach 5.0 million units according to my research.  Research says GC took 25 months to reach 5.0 million in the USA (by NPD).

Its looking like through month 12 like Wii is tracking 20%-25% ahead of where PS2 was in it's 12 month.

Also worth noting - Wii has already offset 5-6 months of the Xbox 360 12 month lead in sales, in roughly one year of sales.  Current rates would suggest a catchup sometime between Nov 2008 and April 2009 although price drops are a guarentee in the interim time frame...

Whoooaw... Wii is like a virus... Selling strong still i see! It ain't a fad people! The games are poorin in!

Very interesting.

So what do you think the chances are of it reaching 5M source?

454k huh? Gonna be really close, i'm assuming it's a 4 week month. I'm quite certain it will reach 400k, but it might come just short of 454k.

Now the big question is whether the PS3 will beat the Cube and Xbox!

Wii will pass 5 million during October, hands down.

454k units in a 4 week month seems a bit much to achieve, but they will be able to reach 5M sold before being on the market for a whole year.

PS3, unless it does something crazy in Oct NPD and sells like 400k (not likely - the price drop comes the day after NPD's October period ends), will end up with sales nearly identical (although slightly higher) to Dreamcast over months 1-12.  GC and Xbox look like they had a ~25% more and a ~60% more sales in their first 12 months (respectively) than PS3 will (again unless it sells something crazy like 400k in Oct - I'm assuming it will do 90k to 120k in the USA NPD report for October).

Established console brands tend to see 10-20% (i.e. NES, PS1, Xbox are exceptions) of their lifetime sales by the end of month 12 in the USA.  So if PS3 is at ~1.95/2.0 million by the end of month 12 in the USA (NPD) then its looking unlikely to be outside the 10-20 million range (just like GC, Xbox, N64).  I have it pegged at 18 million lifetime in the USA, but we'll have to wait and see!.

If Wii has already seen 20% of it's sales in the USA by month 12, that would still indicate is will do roughly 25 million units - just in the USA - which I think would put the numbers between NES sales and SNES sales.

BUT - if it's only 10% of sales by month 12 - which is close to what it is going to end up for PS2 - Wii could end up closer to 50 million.  I'd guess neither is true...and Wii will end up around 38 million in the USA.

360 is in between , and should end up around 18 million as a worst case scenario at this point in the USA.  I think 28 million or so is more realistic.

Well said Rol. It all really depends on if Nintendo ships extra and people buy extra Wiis in anticipation for SMG.

that's scary that you mention ps3 sales will be very close to DC sales in the first 12 months.