Just cause you respect John doesn't mean you have to agree with him folks.

As for the production capacity of the Wii if we take the recent announcement of 1.8m per month and stretch it over the next 14 months, take the recent Quarterly report shipped #s, and account for October 1.8m produced we get to (15*1.8)+13.17= 40.17.

We can look at it another way and say 1.8m per month from the estimated end of march total of 22.5m and add in 9 months of 1.8m production or (9*1.8)+22.5=38.7. But considering how conservative Nintendo's estimates usually are it makes sense that this is lower than the first estimate.

Obviously both of these numbers are subject to increase if demand stays the way it has been, but I think an upper cap is probably around 55m and that would be assuming Nintendo is continuing to increase production even now (which is very possible).

With all of that in mind, I think it is very possible that the likes of Wii Fit could create the craze that our very own John Lucas is talking about and continue to keep Wii's hard to find consistently if not completely sold out in the long term. But I have to disagree with him about the 60m number if for no reason other than production limits.

I dunno, they've nearly doubled production in the last 8-9 months or so, so who's to say they couldn't be making 3-4M a month this time next year if they really needed to?

Thats actually what my 55m was based on.

If we assume they have the higher assumption of about 23m by March and they are producing 3.6m per month for the 9 months following it would mean 32.4m produced in the 9 months and with the 23m added in it would be a total of 55.4m.

But all of that ignores the fact that it is harder to double the second time than it is the first.

You're trying to tell us that the 360 is going to sell more from January '08 to December '08 than it did in the previous 23 months? 

The Xbox 360 did 10 million *sales to consumers* in more than a year and a half.  After two years on the market, it will have sold approximately 13 million.  

Xbox 360 will have it's best year next year. The price is dropping steadily, the new systems should be more reliable, and the Software library is beefy. I expect that by the end of 07, 360 numbers will be 15-16M and by the end of 08, 360 numbers should be around 26-27M. After Holiday 08 however, we can expect 360 to peak and start heading downwards for the final two years of it's life span.

Wii, will remain bullish. Depending on supply, it should see 40-50M by the end of 08, and a strong spring 09 with an attractive price drop following christmas. This will also keep Wii bullish in 09.

I think we have a few myths playing around this thread.

The sales of the 360 for the past month and a half cannot be totally attributed to Halo 3. Were it only about Halo 3 the console would be under a hundred thousand now. Halo 3 might have been the break out title, but the console is moving itself now. They have hit a consistent sales base, and its illogical to call it a spike being that it is a horizontal line. Hell last week 360 sales went up. We are on a plateau folks. Not on top of a mountain looking down.

I think the expectation that any console will sell over three million units world wide a month during the lean months is excessively optimistic. The Wii is not as supply constrained as it was earlier in the year, and it is much easier to get them. Yet the sales stay remarkably stable. I just do not see a console exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand units per market per week consistently. That would be unprecedented by this years numbers. Keep the predictions realistic.

We do need to consider the effect of the PS3, or more specifically what effect the flopping of that console might have. Now if the PS3 does better those are sales lost to Microsoft in the other markets, and sales lost for the Wii in Japan. However if the console flops hard through the holidays and next year. Microsoft will gain more sales from hardcore gamers, and many core gamers. Anyway we cannot ignore the third player in the war.

Anyway I think we have a lot of lose reasoning in this thread. The Wii is not going to sell sixty million units through the end of next year. The 360 is probably going to do better then the low ball estimates thanks to having titles like GTA, and the fact that the console has reached a new base rate speaks to increasing demand rather then a decreasing demand. I think the Wii will still win, but not be some obscene margin. Perhaps six or seven million. I think it will take a double digit lead in the following year as long as consumers stay in love, and thats firmly in Nintendo's court. In other words as long as they do not get full of themselves of make too many bad calls.

The price dropped once -- it's not "dropping steadily".  Also, there is no indication that the new systems are any more reliable than the old ones.  In fact, most of the evidence suggests otherwise.  Futher, Gamestop obviously knows something about 360 reliability going forward because they no longer offer product replacement plans for the 360.  And those replacement plans are supposed to be more than 80% pure profit.

Could 2008 be the best year for the 360 so far?  Possibly -- I strongly doubt it will sell 10 million units in the 12 month calendar year of 2008, though.

 So, because GTA is also on PS3, no 360's are going to be sold?

GTA is a massive franchise, it will sell ALOT of 360's and PS3's. Especially if the price is at or below $299 by that time. 

If you assume Nintendo beats their projection - slightly - by March 31 2008 and ships 24 million ltd, and 18 million units from April 1 2007 to March 31 2008, then you have Nintendo at probably 36 million shipped just through October (1.71 million for 7 months - very doable with Iwata stating recently that Nintendo is shipping 1.8 million units per month), then somewhere between 8-12 million more units shipped by for Nov-Dec.

I'd put 44 million shipped x .95 rate of sell through as the lowball sales for Wii by Jan 1 2008 (42 million).

Realistic max is probably 48 million shipped x .95 million (45.5 million)

I can tell you this much - demand will go up when 3rd parties begin catching up in 2008, and Nintendo's more social oriented games start hitting - Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Smash, and potentially many others (Wii Music? Animal Crossing? Wii Sports 2? etc.).  If Galaxy is truly amazing, the hype will carry well into 2008 as well.

I'm inclined to think that some sort of price cut/value increase will be added to Wii in 2008 as well if momentum shows any sign of slowing down.  If the holiday plays out like I think it will, then Sony will be on price cut three in Spring 2008, and 360 will be on price cut two in Spring 2008, at which point Nintendo will want to respond because even Sony could be at $300/$400 for GTA, and Microsoft could finally be deeply immersed at the $200 level (I'd guess $200 for core/$275 for the premium/$350 for the Elite).