True, but people here aren't getting paid to do so, a guy like Pachter gets paid millions, and truthfully is about as accurate as the average forum goer

Pachter didnt do that bad at all. He said that the PS3 would start pulling ahead sometime this year, and guess what? It's like a rebirth of the PS brand.

Still in third place, likely to remain there, at the beginning of this gen he was saying they'd win, and that Nintendo would pull a Sega, if anyone is likely to pull a Sega its Sony

@Avinash_Tyagi - nobody predicted the Wii would be so successful. Even Nintendo has been amazed by its sales.

As for next-gen it really depends on what all 3 bring to the market. The Winner will be the company that is able to balance power/cost/software/consumer awareness. Id say that Nintendo are in the best position but both Microsoft and SONY are in a good position to invest in more powerful hardware that will be competitively priced. (think $399 PS4/720 vs. $250 Wii2).

A few did *cough*malstrom*cough*

Don't forget disruption, if Nintendo releases something that disrupts the new market, like Wii disrupted the old market, then they will thunder ahead again, judging by Reggie's comments that's exactly what they are planning to do

What you have to understand is that Nintendo's success was not due to some random unforeseen circumstance (like an earthquake that cant be predicted).

It was purely their strategy and the market, both of which are completey analyzable and can be dissected.

That 'no one' (apart from Maelstrom) believed that nintendo would be a success is proof of a lack of understanding of the market.

That Maelstrom believed they would be a success, and his belief was based on business strategy and market, is proof that the 'analysts' aren't good at what they do.

@vanatos -- ofcourse Nintendo expected the Wii to do better than Gamecube but they did not expect it sell anywhere near PS2 numbers, let alone surpass them. This can be seen by there reluctance to increase manufacturing to match demand within a reasonable time frame.

As for Maelstrom's Wii prediction in afraid i haven't read it, so ill simply concede defeat there - Maelstrom + a few April fools joke predicted the Wii's success.

^^I guess some random Nintendo fanboys predicted the Wii success on various gaming forums, with reasons like "motion control is the future", or "it is cheaper".

Why Malstrom's prediction is significant is that he correctly explained it with Christensen's Disruption theory, that was, several months AFTER the Wii release, acknowledged by professionals like the writers of ondisruption.com, or Scott Anthony.

Probably several people on this forum are correct about the next generation. It will be either a tie, or the domination of one party, or the domination of two parties, or the death of gaming, or apple entering to, or one or two parties pulling a Sega. . There are about ten reasonable outcomes, so lots of us are correct. But there are very few who are correct for the right reasons. 

The problem for me is that, as far as I remember (and please correct me if I'm wrong), Nintendo's own comments about the Wii before it's release didn't differ that much from what they said about the GC before it released. The difference being that they got it right the second time around.

On a different note: I think it's impossible, or at least very hard, to predict what will happen next gen.

it could very well happen and it could very well be a one sided race. We know next to nothing about the next gen machines and even less about how the big three will market them. So this thread is based on pure speculation.