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Seihyouken on 01 October 2008
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360 has no chance of outselling the Wii this holiday. Neither does the PS3 for that matter so I'm not even going to get into that. As things stand, 360 is going to have a difficult time beating even the PS3. The price-cuts for the system were issued a little too early to be taken full advantage of with the holiday season and we are beginning to see them fall back to relatively normal levels in America and Japan and will likely see them fall equivalently in Europe next week.

PS3 is set to completely dominate all of October with releases such as NBA 09: The Inside (NA), SOCOM: Confrontation (NA/EU/JP/AU), Eternal Sonata (NA), BioShock (NA/EU), LittleBigPlanet (NA/EU/JP/AU), and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (NA) along with the public release of PlayStation Home while the only remotely major exclusive release for the 360 in October is Fable II (NA/EU/AU). PS3 has a big advantage by having October in the bag since it is historically when the holiday rush first begins and will give the PS3 a good head start over the 360 in November.

In November, both consoles are about evenly matched with games. 360 is getting Gears of War 2 (NA/EU/AU), Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (NA/EU/AU), Left 4 Dead (NA/EU/AU), Naruto: The Broken Bond (NA/EU), and The Last Remnant (NA/JP) while PS3 is getting Resistance 2 (NA/EU/JP/AU), MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (EU/JP/AU), Valkyria Chronicles (NA/EU), Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm (NA/EU/JP/AU), and Way of the Samurai 3 (JP). However, PS3 does have a big edge in November due to the 160GB Uncharted bundle being released November 1st and the multitude of European bundles in the very end of October which will likely drive sales better than any individual game this month.

For December, neither console has any big exclusives currently announced with the exception of White Knight Chronicle (JP) for PS3. In light of that, this month will likely be almost exclusively decided by each individual systems' biggest selling point; (360: Price, PS3: Blu-ray). If we once again look back at last year's figures, we see that the PS3 marginally, but decisively, beat the 360 during the months of November and December and we should ask ourselves why that was. It certainly wasn't because it was cheaper, because at the time the 360's new Arcade model cost $280 while the 40GB PS3 cost $400. It also couldn't be due to a superior game lineup due to the 360's major releases of Halo 3, Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, Mass Effect, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja and others compared to the PS3's releases of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. When we narrow out the previous two possibilities then only one remains, that being Blu-ray. Blu-ray was the key that caused the PS3 to outsell the 360 last holiday season at a time when Blu-ray was in a bitter battle with HD-DVD as the official high-definition media format. This upcoming holiday season will be the first since Blu-ray achieved that status and will likely see a significant increase in demand year over year for this holiday season because of it. As for the 360, it has the advantage of being the cheapest console on the market and being at a price-point that has historically attracted the most buyers. However, history has also shown us that with each new generation that price-point has risen and with the Wii having unparalleled success at the $250 price point for almost two years now, I seriously question the significance that the $200 price-point will have now compared to what it has had in the past. 360 is also at a disadvantage of having sold five million more units than the PS3, since by equivalency, that reduces the 360's potential market by five million buyers compared to the PS3's.

Overall it's going to be a very close race between the two, much like it was last year. Currently everything points to a PS3 victory this holiday, but with heavy marketing and possibly a Gears of War 2 bundle in NA, EU, and AU, Microsoft isn't without hope of possibly coming out on top.