Hard to say right now.. but I don't believe that will pass the Wii, specially with SSBB and Mario Kart coming early next year.. The PS3 might have some good sales when MGS4 and FFXIII come out.. but that's about it..
The PS3 is going much like the N64 in his days.. it was a good console, had 1 or 2 excellent games.. but it wasn't enough to compete against the Playstation.
As for the Xbox360, it is a good console, but it will never go well in the japanese market.. I might be wrong, but I believe that the main reason for that is just because the japanese market is very protectionist with their own products, occidental games never had success there, I doubt it will start now..
Hm, a comparison to the N64, usually people tend to compare it to the Dreamcast. But you know, it actually is a bit like the N64. Back in that era Nintendo got cocky due to being on top in the SNES days, and created a console where the games were more expensive to produce (due to cartridges costing more than discs). That's very similar to the position Sony is in. They became cocky by creating the masterpieces that were the PS1 and PS2, and thought anything they did from that point on would sell. It's actually a crying shame that no one in the game industry seems to learn from the competition's mistakes.
As for the Xbox 360 not selling in Japan, as of yet that's true, and it's likely to be true in the future. But there are games coming, big Japanese hits like Devil May Cry 4, Resident Evil 5, etc that should push the console. You see, surveys have been taken, and it seems the Japanese aren't completely culturally biased like we all presumed. They don't all hate the Xbox 360 just because it's foreign.
It turns out that the following reasons are why the Xbox 360 isn't doing well in Japan: The Xbox had a lack of games last generation for that market, so the brand wasn't well-established. Microsoft is apparently terrible at marketing in that region, they don't know how to play to that market. The typical Japanese gamer wants established franchises from Japan on the console (which is being remedied).
And finally, and this one shocked me, most Japanese gamers like
linear games. Apparently the reason they don't latch on to games from other regions is because they don't like free-roaming worlds, customization, etc. When it comes to gaming they'd rather have the game tell them where to go, when to go there, what to do once they get there, and how to get to the next point once they've done that. Basically they want a game that essentially plays itself and tells them everything they should do, all the while forcing them in a set direction.
