The numbers would appear disappointing for Wii fans: a whopping 8.9 million individuals in the USA "are prepared" to pay full price (the 20GB or the 60GB model) for the PlayStation 3 this fall. Nintendo Wii, on the other hand, has 5.7 million people willing to shell out the full $250 for the console. And lastly, 800,000 folks are willing to pay full price for Xbox 360, Premium or Core.

All of these figures come from Los Angeles based Interpret, whose findings were determined in the following manner:

This research, released first to Next Generation, was derived from a sample of 2,000 interviews Interpret conducted online, weighted to 2004 Census data of 13 to 54 year-olds in the U.S. Researchers ran a parallel random digit dial telephone study as a back-up to weigh the data to what the US population looks like to ensure that the online data was not over-representing females, which often occurs with online surveys.

However, Interpret CEO Michael Dowling feels that Nintendo's console could be the spoiler in the race. His logic is that there are two "high end" consoles battling each other, while Wii has no competition at the "low end".

“Nintendo’s marketed Wii as a pick-up-and-play type of device and it seems to be resonating with consumers,” said Dowling. “It wasn’t just older hardcore gamer or younger player, Wii had a pretty wide distribution across age and gender.”

“People are saying they want to wait and see what PS3 is going to be before they buy an Xbox 360 or Wii.”