Why the Nintendo Wii May Defeat the Xbox 360 and PS3

Analysts recently reported that the Nintendo Wii outsold the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3 in January. Analysts with market research groups such as NPD expect the Wii to grab more than a one-third share of the video game console market by 2008, surpassing the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

The Wii selling more units in January than the Xbox 360 and PS3 by a large margin may be surprising enough for most video game aficionados. But the projections that Nintendo will grab a majority of the video game market by 2008 may be an even bigger surprise.

Sony has lead the video game console market since the release of the original Playstation in 1995, which had been previously lead by Nintendo with their NES and subsequent Super NES. Nintendo's main competition during that era was Sega with its Master System and Genesis systems. Sega's last entry into the video game hardware market was the Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast was released in 1999, 16 months before the Playstation 2. The hope for Sega was that the Dreamcast, considered ahead of it's time when released, would restore Sega's wavering reputation in the video game industry. Unfortunately it failed to gain enough momentum before the release of the Playstation 2.

After the last two Nintendo consoles failed to keep up with leaders such as Sony and Microsoft in market share, not many thought that Nintendo could continue to be a serious competitor in the video game console wars. But while Sega tried to compete with a more conventional system based on advances in technology and pure processing power, Nintendo's 'think outside the box' mentality has them going a different route. Nintendo plans to compete with innovation. This is certainly something we've seen recently with the Nintendo DS handheld. A lot of video game experts and players saw the DS as possibly too gimmicky, but it certainly has proven to be a very good system with some great gameplay innovation.

With this innovation from Nintendo in mind, the following includes three reasons why the Nintendo Wii has a great shot at winning this new generation of video game console wars.