Analyst: 30 percent of US Wii-equipped by 2011

Yesterday, industry-research firm NPD Funworld reported that the Wii is the US' best-selling console at present. Shortly thereafter, the Wednesday edition of the Financial Times contained a bold prediction about the console's future--which he believes will be brighter than anyone previously thought.

A report in the The Financial Times quotes one of Tokyo's more prominent game analysts, Merrill Lynch's Yoshiyuki Kinoshita, as being beyond bullish on the Wii. He told the UK-based business daily that he expects the console, which has appealed to nongamers via its motion-sensing capabilities, to be in 30 percent of US homes by 2011. In Japan, Kinoshita expects a full third of households to have the machine in four years.

But while such predictions are the boon--or bane--of console-war partisans, they are just that--predictions. And, among analysts, those are in no short supply. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter foresees the currently third-place PlayStation 3 as winning in the long haul due to its processing brawn and high-storage Blu-ray drive. Others predict any Sony surge will be undermined by an Xbox 360 price cut, perhaps as early as this year.