Is now at 2.8 million

2.8 At the end of Black friday week. Next update after peak week. I think it will be close to 1 million by then.

4.28 At the week ending July 26th (before Japan added)

5.71 At week ending March 22nd (no progress for 1 month, should change.... maybe)

5.71 At week ending Feb 22nd (no supply for NA or Others, strong PS3 sales)

5.61 At week ending Feb 16th (NPD adjustments, no shipments to NA, and PS3 upward adjustments)

5.43 At week ending Feb 9th

5.64 At week ending Feb 2nd

5.69 At week ending Jan 26th

 Note- When I wrote this VGC was undertracking PS3 Hardcore in NA. So the PS3's better than expected sales are throwing a kink in what I predicted here.

The Magic Number is the amount of Wii consoles sold less than the PS3 and 360 combined.

With NA and Others Hardware sales in the Wii has outsold the 360/PS3 by 33k , if Japan trends like it did last week the number sould be between 60 - 70k at the end of this week.

 I however do not believe the Wii has yet to hit full stride, it is still sold out but selling less than the 450k produced each week. Nintendo would have begun to stockpile for next holidays yet, so I truly beleive that the they are still fixing the supply chain. I also believe that they ARE stockpiling for Smash's release in NA, and Japan. So I do not believe we will see the Wii selling at 450k a week level until Smash is released in Japan.

Nintendo will increase production, I believe they have already begun this and we will see the effects in March when they officially announce they have increase production. Estimates seem to Indicate a push to somewhere between 2.2 -2.5 million. I will take the middle road and say that once this is done the output will be about 580k a week. Nintendo will begin to skim off the top and put about 90k a week aside for a MAJOR holiday rush. This would give Nintendo an addition 3 million plus to help battle shortages for the 2008 holiday season.

What does all of this mean? Well, I am going to be fair to the 360 and PS3 and ASSUME that they average for the year what they are now. They have some really big releases that are going offset the summer months.

From all that I have stated I believe the Wii will be selling at and average of 75-100k higher than they are now until may, and then an addition 50-75k from may until Oct. 31.

This would have the Wii selling more than the 360/PS3 combine by about an average of 150k for the next 16 weeks and then by 225k for the next 24 week until the holidays.

If all of this works out by the beginning of holidays 08 the Magic number will be wiped out, in fact the will have exceeded the magic number by about 2.1 million

These estimations are all based on the status quo. The only thing that can change it is a loss of demand for Wii, or major growth in demand of 360/PS3. Also note I did some rounding, the numbers could be off a little one way or the other.

I will update the Magic Number every thursday night from now on. (including tomorrow)

Interesting analysis. I like that you acknowledge what your estimates hinge apon, thus showing that you understand this isn't a gaurantee. So many people post these things as if they are a matter of time that it is nice to see someone with a more analytical approach.

With that said I think your are actually optimistic in terms of how much it will increase but I do absolutely agree it is possible for it to pass the combined sales of both consoles this year if it can muster a strong year.

Thank you Sqrl-

I am gonna edit and bump it each week and leave all of the Past Magic numbers for people to see the trends.

Obviously if and when that happens, which I agree will be by the end of this year, then that'll really impact 3rd party development.

Why produce games for PS360 when it costs twice as much and has a smaller userbase? Obviously for some games, it'd still make sense, but for more and more publishers, there'd be more money and less risk in making Wii exclusives than PS360 multi-console titles.

Does the Wii become the lead platform and the PS360 get graphically 'uumphed' Wii games? Sad day if that happens.

Do they make separate games for both (Wii/PS360)?

Or will fewer and fewer games come out for PS360 overall? This isn't necessarily bad for core gamers, the games that do come out will be the quality titles and the Wii will get all the AA, A and shovelware, but also a lot of great titles too.

When the magic number hits 0 we will have to celebrate with cake!

*warning fanboy talk* It should do it by april and then when GTA4 comes out it'll lose it....but then get it back during the holidays. ;)

This is actually a clever thread, bigjon. Kudos on a good idea. I have two quick comments:

- Your numbers for 360 and PS3 should hold relatively true to form for the next few months, with occasional spikes for major new titles. One thing that you didn't factor in, however, is the seasonal increase that both consoles start seeing at the end of the summer, leading up to the Fall slate of releases. Starting around August with the release of all the yearly sports games, the 360 and PS3 will see about a 15-20% sustained rise in sales, slowing picking up towards the holiday rush. The Wii should probably see a slight boost as well, just not to the same extent.

Of course, this can all be thrown off if Microsoft and Sony decide to break out the red ink and start slashing prices again.

- You're definitely being a little optimistic with Wii numbers. Even if Nintendo is making ~450k per week, it's unlikely they'll see more than about 350k in the slow periods of the year. I expect that they'll hold back some of that supply for major releases and holiday periods. And whether or not Nintendo will continue to increase production is a wildcard.

While I do believe that the Wii will have over 50% marketshare by the end of this generation, I'm not sure if it will happen in 2008. I still think it's something like a 50/50 chance. If it does happen though, it likely won't be until December.

u really went out on a limb here, seeing as how smash is released in japan this week...

as of now, ps360 has sold 26.3million consoles

per my sig, wii should surpass 31million consoles by 7/31/08, or 27 weeks from now

so ps360 has to average 174,074/week combined between now and then in order to keep wii from having a 50% market share at that time (really a bit more since wii should be over 31mil, not exactly at 31 mil)

they should have no problem doing that, seeing as how this week they are at 239k without japan numbers


what gets more interesting is october 31st numbers

at that point wii should be around 38million, or 11.7million higher than ps360 is now

that's 40 weeks away, so they'd need to average 292,500/week to not lose the majority of the market by that point

so as long as Nintendo ups production around May to 2.x/month, then Wii should have >50% market share sometime between August and October.

for determining if Wii will end the year at >50%, then take 45million Wiis - 26.3million ps360s and we get 18.7million

so if ps360 can sell 18.7million this year, then Wii won't end the year at >50% unless Nintendo is more aggressive in upping production and gets into the 50 million range

but in 2009, the post-holiday sales go back down for 360/ps3 and wii continues selling 2mil+/month once the supply chain gets back to normal, so wii will again reach >50% in january and never look back


at that point, sales in ps360 may actually decline in 2009/2010 when devs shift most resources over to wii (larger userbase + cheaper cost = more $$$$) and that's where u get ps360 in a xcube situation and they only sell about 80mil consoles combined before their next generation releases while wii sells 150mil+

I agree that 360 and PS3 sales will go back up thanks to a price war between the systems.  However, I think we'll see very strong Wii sales even during slow periods.  Honestly, when you're still selling out to Sunday morning crowds, you don't really have a "slow period."  I wouldn't be surprised by steady Wii sales of 200k+ per week in America, depending on allocations to Japan and Europe.