Market analysis firm iSuppli is forecasting that total sales of the Nintendo Wii will surpass total sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 during 2008—something of a feat, since the Xbox 360 had a full year’s head start on the upstart Nintendo console.
iSuppli anticipates the worldwide installed base for the Nintendo Wii will reach 30.2 million in 2008, well ahead of the expected installed base of 25.7 million fo the Xbox 360. iSuppli attribute’s the Wii’s success to its emphasis on casual gaming and efforts to appeal to non-traditional gamers.
"The Wii’s performance illustrates the success of Nintendo’s strategy of targeting casual users with an inexpensive console and entertaining titles, rather than addressing hard-core gamers by offering highly sophisticated and spectacular titles and systems," said iSuppli multimedia content research analyst Pam Tufegdzic, in a statement.
Although predicting the video game console market four years from now is a chancy thing, iSuppli is also forecasting the installed base for Sony’s PlayStation 3 will eclipse the Wii in 2011, with an estimated installed base of 38.4 million systems. By 2011, iSuppli estimates the total installed base of the Wii will be 37.7 million units, and the Xbox 360 will have an installed base of about 32.3 million units in 2011. In other words, the split between the three "next generation" video game consoles will be about even…of course, by then, we’ll probably be dealing with "next-next generation" consoles.
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