Wow, DMC 4 has sold 1.23 million on the PS3 V's 1.10 million for X360

[Darc Requiem]

Kyros said:

In other words the 360 has the biggest userbase and it has the momentum right now.

If you define "right now" as the last two weeks then this is correct. It will be different in the next couple of months once the 80Gb PS3 is out again of course.
The PS3 has always been behind the 360. Unlike the Wii, it never overcame the 360's head start. Even after out selling the 360 world wide for the past two quarters the PS3 has made modest progess. The gap between the PS3 and 360 is back to what it was around the PS3's launch. Telling third party developers you will catch up to the 360 around the time the next generation starts is hardly an incentive to garner their support in the immediate future. That leads to more content on the 360 that continues to help MS push the goal post back on the PS3 catching up to the 360. The 360 is poised to outsell the PS3 for at least the next month assuming that there is not price cut. If there is then its likely to be evne longer. The momentum in the PS3 versus 360 battle is going to swing back and forth. Given the 360's head start that does not bode well for Sony.

Unfortunately for Sony most consoles are sold out side of Japan.

That is true but the exclusive FFXIII you mentioned will have the by far biggest impact in Japan, where the 360 won't get it. Which should reduce the 360gloating a tiny bit.
I have said and you have said it as well. The 360 has no real chance at catching the PS3 in Japan. No one expected it to stand a chance against the PS3 there. We've both seen the trends with PS3 major relaeses there and we have also both seen how FF titles start with a bang in Japan and fade quickly. Even the major releases for PS3 that were supposed have legs followed the "huge spike and then free fall" scenario. Given the series history and given the history of major releases on PS3, there is no reason to think that FFXIII will be any different. The lower usebase will blunt the sales of FFXIII in comparison to the most recent releases in the series and the hardware for PS3 will see a temporary spike and then fade to the around the 10k mark. The 360 has seen a recent uptick in sales for a couple months without a major, before SCIV's, release. If the PS3 doing something similar it would be more significant than a temporary spike as it would hint at a higher baseline for weekly sales. As it stands now, PS3 weekly sales have been a slow decline with no major titles that would spike those numbers coming in the near future.

Whether they paid for exclusivity is immaterial, and for the majority of the titles it debatable.

If the 360 would get the exclusives because it is more important to publishers it would be a pro 360 argument. But since you mentioned JRPGs which are biggest in Japan where the 360 effectively doesn't exist I think there is not much to debate. Microsoft paid for them ... a lot. And this is no advantage to the console unless it increases sales. Which it only does a bit 650k is an embarrassment.
As I've said NUMEROUS times on this very forum. It doesn't matter. Sony did this very sort of thing to get to top. It is a great advantage to MS because it weakens Sony's position and forces them to pay either with cash or HUGE incentives, see MGS4, to keep third party content exclusive. Sony built themselves in this industry on third party exclusives, they are only now switching to a reliance on 1st and 2nd party titles now because they don't have the biggest wallet in the industry anymore.

Its the same thing Sony did to Nintendo and Sega to lesser extent. Games like Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc. that were synonomous with Nintendo platforms were now on Sony platforms and it allowed them to siphon away those fans to their platform. As I said before, MS is effectivelly holding the PS3's Japanese userbase down while seeing modest gains in the 360's userbase. The 360 is selling better than the X-box in Japn, the PS3 is selling worse than the PS2 in Japan.

and tilt the focus major Japanese third party developers towards the West where MS is strongest.

ok this is an argument and a reason for Sony loosing out in Japan. I agree with you. But this is a pretty self-destructing approach that only damages Sony and doesn't help MS. They could do much more productive things with the money to increase their own sales. As a shareholder I would be pissed.

By damaging Sony they strengthen their position by default. If they would have just conceded the Japanese market to Sony, they would have been fighting a stronger Sony in the West. Sony wouldn't  have to spend so much money to remain relevant in Japan. They could instead use those funds to weaken MS in North America.

 

Also, nice doing this with you Kyros. Although I disagree with you, I can at least see your point of view.