I dont think it will happen. I think Wii will start to lose steam when PS3 and 360 comes up with motion tecnology next year. It will be very tough, if not impossible for Wii to carry out same level of sales and bypass the PS2.

^Actually the Wand and NATAL will fail, likely resulting in Sony and MS rushing out the PS4 and 720 by 2011-2012

NATAL and the Wand are textbook incumbent counterattacks on an disruptive force, unfortunately for Sony and MS, they are destined to lose and lose bad

I also think it depends on next year. If sales steady or even go up a little YOY, then yes. If sales continue to decline then perhaps not because I don't think the Wii is going to have the opportunity to stay on the market as long as the PS2.

Well Wii won't need to stay on the market as long, as its overtracking the PS2 by quite a lot at this point, even if we see continued declines, it should pass it in 4-6 years (even if it drops to an average of 12 million yearly sales it should pass in less than 7 years meaning it would have been on the market less than 10 years before passing the PS2, and considering this year it will end at around 20 million, 12 millions yearly average sounds very doable)

I used to think yes, but now I think no. Mostly because I just don't see a console which will be lucky to make 50% market share selling 130 million+ consoles. I think Wii will sell more in it's prime 5 years than PS2 did. But PS2 continuing for 4+ years and probably surviving until it's 10th birthday means Wii's chances of topping that record are fading.

Look at it this way. If Wii stays at 50% market share it means total console sales this generation will need to be >260 million. That is such a massive expansion of the VG market it's really only possible if a country like China becomes a massive consumer of video game consoles (rather than just the country where they're all manufactured) rivalling the USA as the biggest single console market. It could happen I suppose, but as of now my vote is no. Also Wii 2 will be out too soon for Wii to really continue to ride the wave.

I even think the 120 million prediction by the OP is not guaranteed given my above reasoning.

If we see the Wii starting to take out 60%+ market share in the remaining years then that will change things a fair bit. I don't see this in Wii's stars with PS3 starting to catch people's eye now. It would take a virtual collapse of the 360 sales for Wii to start to make 60% market share, and 360 isn't going to fall that far.

^Youre assuming that PS3 and 360 will keep selling when its likely that they'll be tapering off in a year or two, and especially when PS4 and 720 will be announced, plus you're assuming that Wii 2 will be announced so soon, when really Nintendo has no reason to do so any time soon, in fact they have the only reason to stick longer with this gen.

About what a $99 Gamecube did.

Wont affect the Wii, as we saw with the price drop in the fall, it had no effect on Wii sales, Wii and PS3 are too differentiated for the PS3 to affect Wii with price

I don't think Wii will be on the market long enough to get there, or Nintendo should release an HD version with sales of both versions being combined. For Wii to overtake PS2 it will have to keep on selling as it does right now for another 3 and a half to 4 years. I doubt it will be even stay on the market that long, let alone keep on selling this well. But Wii sales definitely suprised me this year so who knows.

It definately has a chance, as long as Nintendo continues to support the system long enough. There is still a lot o franchises that Nintendo could release on the system, and 3rd party support has been decent compared to GC and N64 and hopefuly it will continue to improve, they just need to do something about dry spells when no good software gets released to sustain sales.