4 Things MS could do to really sell great this holiday, and take the wind out of Sony's sales. 

1. Advertise Backwards Compatibilty. I think this one is a given for MS. Anyone who is in retail will tell you how big of a feature this actually is. It won't just boost software sales, but anyone on the fence about buying a console this holiday might make their final decision based on this alone. This is the type of feature will gain traction by word of mouth. Please don't tell me, "But it's only 100 games!" Do you really think casuals will care? In the end more games will be added so that argument doesn't hold much weight. 

People need to realize this matters very little to the average gamer. Really little... PS3 lost backwards compatibility back in the day, the sales kept rising...

2. Bundle Rare Replay with all holiday consoles. This will give MS the advantage of saying, "Buy our console which already comes with 30 games in the box!" Let alone, 30 awesome classic games. Any parent who walks into the store looking for a new console for Timmy, would be hard to pass up 30 games already ready to go compared to maybe 1 or 2 by the competitor. 

30 awesome classic, this will attract nostalgic players. On the other hand, the younger ones, the new gamers, most gamers (pick one) will prefer what's coming this year, the fresh meat if you see what I mean (and there's so much of it).

3. The Xbox elite controller. Don't tell me those 13 year olds crazy over Cod don't want a controller like this. All of them want any type of advantage they can possibly have, even if that means just 3 extra kills.  They will beg their poor parents to buy them the Elite controller. Some might say, "But it's $150 why would you buy that?" Most controllers with similar features run for $200+, and you're getting an official controller by MS, not some 3rd party company. 

Yea... ofc... who doesn't want a $150 controller... And you're right, most "high-end" controllers go for that price, and they sell very little... See where I'm going?

4. Holiday lineup. MS has the upperhand in their offering this holiday. There is nothing Sony is offering that can go toe-to-toe with Tomb Raider, Forza 6, and Halo 5. All MS needs to do is push those three games heavily, along with of the things I've already mentioned and they're good to go. MS will already have the retailer support like Gamestop, Best buy, etc. simply because of backwards compatibility. 

Wohoo, finally a valid point. They should advertise their exclusives. To that I agree 100%.

I'm not saying MS will win the holiday, but it will make it a hell of a lot more interesting if they do the following. 

Exactly. And unlike MS, Sony actually needs PS to make money not just breakeven. 

Obviously lineups are subjective, but if you weigh all things up... only Halo is going to push consoles in any serious amount, and I'm not sure how much excitement there is for this game. I still think it will sell very well, but it's all a question of how many Halo users havent moved across yet and how many will when Halo comes out.

TR seems like a total waste of money now, and I suspect SE will be regretting it. They are going to see sales do very poorly on the XBO... why because of FO4 and the other big games around it. They were not to know it was coming out the same day, but I suspect that TR will get a delay or release date move now.

Third party games usually do well over Xmas, they always do, and even though there is a bit of apathy on COD and AC, they will still take a lot of sales. The two biggest games of this year/xmas are definately SW Battlefront and Fallout 4. Fallout 4 is going to be right up there for GOTY and sales wise will definately prevent TR from selling any reasonable amount (because some of those XBO users will buy FO over TR).

I've said this before but when people state that game ownership per console is in the low 2/3 games per console, having 4-6 big games coming out basically mitigates console exlusives. Just look at the next few months, these are the games that I would want to buy or big games that are coming out (not console exclusives):

September:

• Mad Max
• Metal Gear Solid
• FIFA 16
• PES

October:

• Rock Band
• Rainbow 6
• AC syndicate

November:

• FO4
• Star Wars Battlefront
• COD Black Ops

Theres more than that... but I think that shows the big problem for exclusives. I will probably buy about 8 of those, that's about 2 a month, and there are other smaller games I am interested in, this is why Exclusives at Xmas are not so important. I'm spending £100 on the collectors edition of FO... it all adds up.

Even Ms is starting to realise to move things to Jan-March after Sony has been doing this for years, the only problem is so many AAA games have also been delayed now to next year that again, exclusives are going to look even less appealing (unless they are big games) because so many other games will be competing.

I definitly agree and don't expect a price cut at all really.  What people fail to notice is that Sony really doesn't need it.  Also, Xbox One can be more competitive this way and that keeps the industry healthy.  One quote that Sony's UK boss said "No one wins a race to $0".  Sony doesn't want to wipe out the Xbox One with overly aggressive pricing either because that will only contract the industry.    Even Yoshida said that the industry is at its best when there is "healthy" competition.   There is no way Microsoft wins this holiday, but at the same time, there is no reason for Sony to be that aggressive either. 

We're trying to be realistic here though right ;)