It did go up from 16.17 million to 16.22 million, but that is such a small bump (50,000 units, less than one week of sales) that I would consider it insignificant.

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think that it will have another peak.

Having said that, if Wii sales continue the way they have, the Wii is still on track to top 120 million.  And with that userbase, I think NSMB Wii is on track to top 20 million.

Dammit.  Now I have to convice the wife to buy me one :)

^You don't have to follow sales by fiscal year. I can't be bothered to check now (using Wii browser) but I think the PS2 did rise again... In calendar years I think 2002 was it's peak, but the slim released in 2004 to give it a boost.... Like I said, i don't want to check now myself, but to see sales rises and falls you need to look in more detail than per year, try looking at the aligned launch graph with weeks set to max (I think 400 is max.. so nearly 8 years) specifically for PS2, but check the other 6th gen consoles, and the hanhelds too.

And to be honest, what I suggested is hardly a second coming.... 26mil down to 20 then to 23 is more of a sustained plateau than anything else (ie like the DS)

http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=All&cons2=XB&reg2=All&cons3=GC&reg3=All&weeks=400&weekly=1

It's hard to tell from the above graph. The PS2 did have a higher spike of 1,326,373 for a Christmas week in 2005 (WE Dec 24 2005) than a spike of 929,897 in 2004 (WE Dec 18 2004).

Using Hardware by Date, the PS2 sold:
18,453,863 in 2005 (WE Jan 01 2005 to Dec 31 2005)
15,909,309 in 2004 (WE Jan 03 2004 to Jan 01 2005)
19,015,858 in 2003 (WE Jan 04 2003 to Jan 03 2004)
21,434,573 in 2002 (WE Jan 05 2002 to Jan 04 2003) - Peak year

I find it quite interesting that the fiscal numbers differ so much from the calendar periods. I always thought the first calendar quarter wasn't significant, but it looks like the sales of the slim continued into Q1 2005, as shown in the first graph, causing the discrepancy.

I have not crunched the numbers in as much detail as the PS2, but the other systems to not seem to show signs of a second peak.

What do you think would cause the Wii to have another peak? So far Nintendo has not discussed a slim redesign like the PS2 had. New colours? New software? New bundles?

^You are still looking at it too broadly... the Wii is already on a second peak by any standards that you seem to be counting at peaks... (ie dropping slightly before rising again) This Christmas it did better than last Christmas after all.

Personally I think the middle of 2009 (March to September) the Wii was just in decline from a poor software lineup. It had ridden on the back of Mario Kart Wii/Wii Fit and Smash Bros from early 2008 to early 2009, but with nothing significant in late 2008/early 2009 it started fading. The price cut, with help from Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, and even bigger help from NSMBWii has stopped that lull.

If you look at the PS3 sales, from the price cut in November 2007 to November 2008 it would have sold more than it did from November 2008 to November 2009 if it wasn't for the PS3 slim.

I try to look at things "broadly", as when you look to closely you will see seasonal variations and increases from game launches which can skew trends. Looking at it yearly seems to eliminate that.

With the Wii, if NSMB Wii launched in July, I would guess that this Christmas would have been worse than last years, but late summer and early fall wouldn't have been as big a decline. Overall, it looks like the Wii has peaked, in my opinion anyway. If it hasn't, and this summer was just a lull, then the predictions others made earlier of lifetime sales of 150 - 180 million are still possible, and NSMB Wii could go on to sell 30+ million to become the highest selling non-bundled console game.

Also, big game releases after a peak seem to just slow down the drop off (for example, FF XII and GoW2 did not cause another peak with the PS2). So I'm not expecting huge hardware boosts from SMG2, Metroid or Zelda this year.

The Playstation brand is a bit of an oddity with the slim launches, as they seem to rejuvenate its sales. I sometimes wonder if people held off buying the PS3 until the slim launched, depressing earlier sales, or if it was all due to its price finally becoming reasonable for most people. But I digress, and I don't want to completely hijack this thread.