I'm going to say what I honestly think is going to happen. I think that Sony and Nintendo have the best shot at being #1 and it's going to be a lot closer this time around...the PS3 won't out sell the Wii and the 360 by double of their combined sales like the PS2 whooped on the X-Box and Gamecube. It's going to be close this time around and either Sony or Nintendo will win. Sony has the best console for the price even though it's priced pretty high, Blu-Ray players alone are worth over $1,000 for a good one, the CELL processor is expensive and it's all of that plus everything the 360 can do the PS3 can do. You also can't forget the power the Playstation name has.The Wii will be a close second or it will barely win and the 360 will be a close third, I really think this time around the console wars are going to be very even. The Wii will probably dominate the Japanese market and the PS3 will do good but not that good, the 360 is almost not a factor in the Japanese market. The PS3 has no good games out at the time but neither did the PS2 back then, the PS3 will get it's games soon enough. The problem that the PS3 will face is that the 360 will take most of the exclusives from Sony, not take them away entirely but they will share those games now, it's already starting to happen. The 360 will also do good because of Halo 3 and some of it's other first party games along with it's great online service. Microsoft won't be #1 because they can't compete in Japan and to win this console war you have to compete on all fronts. Meanwhile the Wii will have it's always awesome 1st party titles as well as some great unique games form third parties like the DS has seen. The Wii, like I said already, will dominate the Japanese charts and that will help out a lot and this might, and probably will, be the reason the Wii comes out on top. Nintendo is going to have to make the Wii last and they are going to have to push some other developers too because first party games alone won't do it for them, just see what happened with the GC and the 64. In the end I think this will be a very close race between and this will only benefit us, the gamers, because the competition will be pushing each other to the max which will force quality, Nintendo has always had quality but now it will be even better. I seriously want Nintendo to come out on top but it has to show longevity and I think that's one of the reasons they have their 1st party games spread out.
Here are my predictions now and I think no matter how they really end up it will be very close, very very close.
1. Wii- The new, the fun, and the Japanese market. Oh and 1st party games, enough said, Nintendo will take #1 and dish out massive damage to the giant enemy Sony crab because it will dethrone them.
2. PS3- The power, the games, and the name, it's a close second for Sony.
3. 360- The traditional tried and true experience, the great online, and Halo. A close third for Microsoft, the one year head start will help but without the Japanese market they won't win.
Anyways, no matter what happens I know that the only company that's going to be getting significantly richer is Nintendo. It's all about the business and Nintendo knows this, they don't even care about #1 because they know #1 won't help them if they lose money, they're just sitting back and raking in the money and thinking ahead towards the next generation already.
