I was doing some research...and I noticed that according to http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/historical_data/index.html (under consolidated sales transition by year) that lifetime software shipments are available by platform.

Here are lifetime totals for software shipped through Dec 31 2007.

NES software shipments ~500 million (61.91 million NESs shipped in total)

SNES software shipments ~379 million (49.1 million SNESs shipped in total)

N64 software shipments ~225 million (32.93 million N64s shipped in total)

GC software shipments ~208 million (21.72 million GCs shipped by this point)

Wii software shipments ~113 million (20.13 million Wiis shipped by this point)

Lifetime attach rates by shipments:

NES - 8.1 games/console

SNES - 7.7 games/console

N64 - 6.8 games/console

GC - 9.6 games/console (to date)

Wii - 5.6 games/console (to date)

Can't really see Nintendo shipping under 60 million Wiis lifetime in any circumstance, and I don't see attach rates dropping...people buy more games with time. So I think we can say 335 million units of software is the lowest amount of software that Wii will sell realistically.

Imagine if the console hit PS2 numbers (125 million) with an attach rate like the NES (8 games). That would be 1 billion games sold. Most at $50/pop, along w/ profitable hardware....could $100 billion in revenue from Wii alone (games, consoles, liscencing, accessories) be possible over its lifetime??

Some of this stuff is mind boggling.

Edit:

Here are the shipped software numbers through 3/31/08, the above data is through 12/31/07

Wii ~ 148.4 million/24.45 million Wiis

GC ~ 208.4 million/21.74 million GCs

DS ~ 369.6 million/70.6 million DSs

GBA ~ 376.6 million/81.06 million

Wii Software: Wii Hardware = 6.07:1 (10% increase)

GC Software: GC Hardware = 9.59:1 (unchanged)

DS Software: DS Hardware = 5.24:1 (2% increase)

GBA Software: GBA Hardware = 4.65:1 (unchanged)

You da man...this kind of info is why I come to this site.

the GC attach rate is incredible, wow

The Wii attach rate is more impressive in my opinion. Its been out under two years, the others had six years+ to reach those attach rates, and its already comparable.

Personally, I think I could end up with 20 Wii games by the end of 08' let alone the generation, so we'll have to see how high this gets. 

Nintendo is reversing the trends.

Btw, no info on handhelds?? That would be great to see.

Stop the presses. The gamecube software shipment makes the N64 look bad.

Thanks for the list TheSource. Would it be a lot of trouble to make a 1st/3rd party ratio on those shipments? Not that you have to do it, I just wanna know if it would be way too troublesome.

I'll do handhelds...it has that info as well.

Game Boy (Nintendo includes Gameboy Color in this)

~501 million units of software shipped

~118.69 million Game Boy's shipped

Lifetime attach rate by shipments ~ 4.2 games sold per Game Boy

Game Boy Advance

~ 375 million units of software shipped

~ 80.72 million GBAS shipped to date (though Dec 31 2007)

Lifetime attach rate by shipments ~4.6 games sold per Game Boy Advance (to date)

DS

~ 331 million units of software shipped (through Dec 31 2007)

~ 64.79 million DSs shipped to date (through Dec 31 2007)

Life time attach rate by shipments ~5.1 games sold per DS (to date)

DS should reach at leat 95 million (conservatively), so it should easily top Nintendo's big daddys in software sales - NES, and Game Boy. At PS2 hardware numbers, with six games sold instead of 5.1...your talking...750 million units of software. However at only $35 for games and cheaper hardware, likely not as profitable as either NES or Wii...

N64 had the worse atach rate for any nintendo console =( , and had some of the best game ever =)

Well I would say the iconic N64 games were so far ahead of everything else that many didn't have reason to purchase others.

Smash, Zelda, Mario 64, Kart 64, Goldeneye 007, Mario Party were all unique, and essentially unparalleled on PS1, so those were the games that sold N64. 

Impressive Gamecube attach rate. That console has a solid fan hardcore Nintendo gamers base while Wii has a mixed casual, hardcore and Nintendo fans. I hope Wii reaches NES milestone in software sales.