As far as the mass market is concerned, the HD argument has proved to be moot, and will continue to be. YOU CAN PLAY Wii ON A HD TV!!!! And best of all, most consumers still think SD on HD looks great, through composite! If you want to participate in sales threads and predictions with some degree of accuracy you have to accept this, otherwise your 'wait for HD to kick in' comments just come off as fanboy delusions. At this point, graphics won't be the deciding factor this generation.
As for the Wii 3rd Parties comments, give it time, because developers didn't expect the success. Tiger Woods has been a big hit and will likely sell as well as the 360 version, and several launch games have sold well. Considering the titles released 3rd Party Wii sales are as expected, when the bigger, more specific games come out, they'll sell. Besides, in terms of system selling ability Nintendo is well prepared for initial poor 3rd Party support, with it's line up of 1st Party releases and the fact the system is still selling every unit Nintendo can ship on the strength of Wii Sports and the other released titles. It's Sony who has to really worry about 3rd Parties this time round, because sw sales are bad on PS3 and PSP. Going forward Sony is going to struggle with incentives for 3rd Party support, PS2 is on the decline, PSP sw sales are terrible and PS3 sw sales are even worse. Sony's only 3rd Party exclusives for PS3 look like they're going to be the money hat kind. PSP hw sales are good, but coming from the success Sony enjoyed with PS1 and PS2, a future having the handheld as your big gun isn't a great situation to be in imo.
360 isn't selling well. Its hw sales aren't impressive at all, though its sw sales are very good.
Historically, how a console is selling in the slow periods of the year is a good indication for market dominance, because any console can sell well in the holidays with big titles. For Wii to be selling 340K in May is just incredible, and the demand is only going to increase in the coming months.
A year ago I had no idea how this generation would turn out and was sceptical about Wii's success, however, with MS's inability to expand its audience beyond the original Xbox, especially since Halo 3 and GTA 4 are going to be reinforcing this image for the rest of the year, Sony's complete ineptness with PS3, and Wii's incredible momentum and positive buzz, this generation has now been decided imo. The style of gaming seen on PS2 (and expanded on PS3 and 360) is being seen as old, and somewhat archaic in the eyes of the mass market, and Wii is the new must have product. The bottom line is, Nintendo has played all the right cards and Sony and MS have already made too many blunders.
