According to y-koron, with the weekend news of release schedules...

 Initially, Virtua Fighter 5 was going to be US and PAL-only on the X360. Now, it includes Japan, and the asiatic regions (I assume). As many know, the X360 VF5 is the "definitive version" due to the online play.

And the biggest thing? It's debuting alongside Lost Odyssey, Microsoft's biggest game of the year, and probably thus far since they've been wooing Japanese developers.

To me, this is absolutely huge. The Xbox 360 fanbase has proven they like fighting games (DOA4 is still #2 on the lists, and previous DOA games have always managed to succuede despite abysmal hardware sales on the Xbox).

My opinion? The X360 now has a great and valid chance of beating the Playstation 3 that week in Japan, and then some, quite possibly.

For those that don't know, DOA4 launching 3 weeks after the X360 came out in Japan caused all sorts of problems. It's delay was the primary reason the X360 launch was so poor in Japan (only selling ~50k first week). When DOA4 launched, it sold to 67.9% of the Xbox 360 userbase, and made the Xbox 360's sales increase by 100%, taking it from an utterly abysmal 6,700 units to 13,000 units.

 To me, Virtua Fighter 5 should have a similar effect on sales - increase it by a moderate (atleast under "now" standards) amount, and LO will increase it even further.

IMO, we could see 50,000 or more hardware units sold that week. Impossible? When Blue Dragon launched, more than 35,000 units launched, and was far less-anticipated than Lost Odyssey (LO has been in the Famitsu MW charts for nearly a year, whereas BD was on it for about half of that time and a lower position).

So I'm thinking for first week on 12/9:

Lost Odyssey: 135,000 Units

Virtua Fighter 5: 75,000 Units

X360 Hardware: 52,500 Units

+ Older Titles getting a solid boost (AC6, BK)

52000 is too optimistic in my opinion. Thats around 15% of two years worth of hardware sales in just one week. Don't get me wrong, I hope it happens, but im thinking more along the lines of 30000. That said, I agree with your LO prediction, but again believe your VF5 number is too high.

Virtua fighter wont sell that much. 360 can easily outsell ps3 but it depends on when GT proluge launches and the pricecut thing. Dont really know what kind of christmas boost 360/PS3 will get.

on 11/22 PES and DW6 release for PS3 in japan and one week after LO/VF5 GT5:Prologue releases ,so I don't think the 360 will be able to outsell the PS3 that week

Lafiel - your point? DW6 releases on X360 11/22 as well...That'll do just as much (% wise) for the X360 as the PS3.

Also, I fail to see how GT5 Prologue will boost sales the week BEFORE it launches.

Could Lost Odyssey + VF5 really increase the userbase by 15% in just one week? Of course. Dead or Alive 4 increased the userbase by around 20%, and Blue Dragon increased the userbase by 19.1% - a much higher % increase than the 15% I'm talking about.

Thats true, but % increases get harder and harder as sheer volume increases. I hope, I wish, I pray but i just dont see 50000 happening.

Plus GT prologue will lift PS3 sales the week before just like Halo 3 lifted 360 sales the week before in the states. Not that it deserves too. GT5 prologue is an overpriced demo. And by overpriced i mean it is $40 dollars more expensive than the freebie it should be.

 Good analysis, I follow your predictions.

 We will see considering PS3 sales are flat anyway. I'm seeing that DW6 and GT5: Prologue will have 50k units the weeks those games first come out, then drop after that.

yea 360's problem is .. the PS3 versions and 360 versions of PES and DW release the same day .. which console will get more of a boost from that huh?

I think GT can very well boost the sales a bit before launch (and "a bit" might be enough in this case) and ofcourse after launch there will be no chances for the 360 to top PS3's sales.

The people in japan ,who are hardcore enough to get VF5 for consoles already have it for the (dirt cheap) PS3 ,while all others play it in arcades ,so I expect pretty low numbers from VF5 .. about 10k first week , 15-20k lifetime.. and ofcourse no significant boost from that game.

As for LO , while it certainly will be a good boost for the 360 I don't expect it to do much better than Blue Dragon , because BD had the Toriyama art style , which still is tremendously popular in Japan , while LO doesn't have that advantage.
In my crystal ball I see a good ,slightly below 100k first week (92-98k) and about 30k boxes sold that week.