The real answer is most of them have gone handheld/mobile, because they don't see in the new consoles anything to justify something other than the PS2. So they went for differenciation.

Some have bought a Wii exclusively, some have bought a DS and kept their PS2s. Most of them have bought a Wii and a DS.

some, not too many

Yes of course.

By Nintendo's most recent figures (mid-2009) about 20% of Wii owners didn't own a 6th gen console (some of those may have skipped 6th gen or been handheld/PC gamers beforehand, so not all are new gamers, but that is not important for the OPs question)

80% of 60 million is 48 million, MOST of those have to be PS2 owners simply because there were not enough GC and XB owners to spread around. (not all of them will have bought a 7th gen console yet)

I am very doubtful many XB owners will have moved over to the Wii, but a lot of GC owners will have. As a guesstimate I would say of that 48 million:

- 5 million were multi-console owners last gen (most multi console owners last gen will have had a PS2)
- 1 million were XBox exclusive owners (could easily be less than that, I don't think the audiences mix well)
- 12 million were GC exclusive owners (many of the multi owners will have had GCs too)
- That leaves 30 million that were PS2 exclusive owners.

I would say most XB owners (that have moved) moved to X360, If we say ~18-19 million XB owners have already moved to 7th gen Probably 13 million of those moved to X360, less than 1mil to Wii and the rest to PS3.
So X360 owners (35 million of them... I am not including the last few weeks as it made it easier to work out Wii percentages) are made up of:
- Some new gamers (say 2 million)
- Some multi 6th gen owners (5 million... most will have been PS2/XB owners)
- 9 million XB exclusive owners (13 million - 4 million that also had a PS2)
- 2 million exclusive GC owners
- therefore 17 million PS2 exclusive owners.

PS3 owners will be made up of mostly PS2 owners (but then the Wii and X360 are also mostly PS2 owners.. just not as "mostly" as the PS3)
Lets say, out of the 29 million PS3s:
- 3 million new owners (more attractive to previous non gamers than the X360, mostly due to Blu-Ray)
- Multi 6th gen console owners (errr...3 million?)
- 4 million XB exclusive owners
- 2 million GC exclusive
- That leaves 17 million PS2 excl. owners

========

So:
Wii - 30 + 4 million of the multi owners = 34 million PS2 owners have a Wii.
360 - 17 + 4 million of the multi owners = 21 million PS2 owners have an X360
PS3 - 17 + 3 million of the multi owners = 20 million PS2 owners have a PS3

All this is of course just an estimate, the only facts in there are those from Nintendo about new gamers, the rest is number crunching based on how many of last gens owners I think will have moved on (which is less in %age for PS2 as it is still popular and selling) and my assumption that XBox owners and GC owners don't mix much (and thus not many XB owners moved to Wii except those few who buy multiple consoles)

Even so, yes I believe more PS2 owners have moved to X360/PS3 than to Wii, but it is not by the margin some of you might think (41:34 being my results... some of those will be crossovers though by owning more than 1 console from this gen)

this answer doesn 't exist

Man you guys act like there were no casual gamers on the PS2.

You dont sell, what 133m units, with just core gamers...Not even close.

I voted the middle one for sure.

i only use my wii when i travel smtimes cuz its much lighter than my ps3 or 360 ;p

Wii audience is larger than both Xbox360 and PS3. I remember reading somewhere about retiring home, nursing home and others buying wii so that when familly comes to visit they can play together. And after one house did it the others follow because of the competition.

this was the info I was looking for to counter Carl in the very first reply, but I couldn't find a link for it. While Nintendo has "expanded" the market, they have also stole the "non-hardcore" from Sony and Microsoft. Both of those consoles started the generation with "hardcore" in mind, compared to the PS2 which was just a games console for everyone.

I was a xbox gamer last generation and this gen I went with the ps3 over both the wii and the 360 which launched much earlier. Part of that reason is because I picked up a bc ps3 and got to play alot of the ps2 back catalog that I missed out upon because of owning only an xbox. I believe you all are right that the "casual" gamers tend to gravitate toward the gimmicks and whats looked at as the new 'fad"; last gen it was the ps2 and this gen it is the wii (imo).

If what you say is true, then the gaming industry would have shrunk by about 100% without the Wii. In other words, the gaming industry would have crashed just like in the Atari days.