I love the thread! Good that all names and predictions are set in the 1st post. This thread will live for eons!
Factors to consider:
* Current sales trends hard to interpret. In Q1 this year it seemed like the PS3 would really sustain a stable sales-lead world-wide by 50,000 consoles per week. But then MS dropped price in Europe which reduced the lead, and recent numbers show that post-GTA4 sales of particulary the PS3 have dipped quite a bit (only 20K lead now).
* What happened with Blu-ray? I see hardly anyone talk about "the Blue-ray effect" anymore. Instead there are fears that the HD format on discs will see slow adoption in homes, and people even compare it to Laser-disc.
* Game and console fans like us tend to over-estimate the effect of AAA titles effect on console sales. But time and time again we're shown that the immediate effects are marginal (including Halo 3 and GTA4). Long term effects are harder to track, but I can't see MGS4, GT5 and FF do miracles like Sony-fans still seem to believe.
* Price-drop potential. The 360 should have more potential than the PS3 to drop price, but MS' game division is not showing the big profit it should have if the X360 consoles today really are sold with profit.
So it's hard to predict right now, but for the moment I'm thinking these kind of long term numbers:
PS3 lead in EU/others: 25K per week
PS3 lead in NA: 5K per week
PS3 lead in Jap: 15K per week.
-------------
= 45K per week that the PS3 is outselling the X360 in non-Holiday period. That translates to roughly 130k per week during the 9 Holiday weeks (Nov+Dec).
The total lead for X360 is right now 6.3 million consoles (19 weeks into 2008).
By end of 2008 that lead has shrunk to 6.3 million - (24 x 45K + 9 x 130K) = 6.3 - 2.25 mill = 4.05 million units.
By end of 2009 the lead has shrunk to 4.05 - (43 x 45K + 9 x 130K) = 4.05 - 3.1 mill = 0.95 million units.
The remaining 950K units takes 950K / 45K = 21 weeks to eat up, which is more than 1Q, why the PS3 will overtake the X360 WW in Q2 2010.
So my prediction is Q2 2010.
