I've been paying atention to console sales predictions......come on people!

[Millennium]

My personal prediction is that the PS3 will sell some 3 million units during this holiday season, the 360 will sell some 2.5 million, and the Wii will sell some 6 million. These are worldwide figures, of course.

The thing is, consoles virtually always sell out during the holiday season. Even the unpopular ones manage it. The PS3's failure to sell out during its first holiday season was an anomaly from which it has recovered, much as the NES did.

Because of this, the question of who can sell more consoles during the holiday season is a simple question of who can make more (and, in the case of the PS3 and 360, who could stockpile more in the months leading up to it).

As it stands, the Wii currently makes just under 2 million Wiis per month, and the November boost will bring that number to just over 2 million; the average over these three months will probably be just about in the 2 million range. Thus, I predict 37-38 million sold by the end of the year: 2 million per month for the next 2.5 months.

Early in the PS3's lifetime, Sony bragged about being able to make 1 million PS3s per months, but it has been a long time since their figures ever matched that, and their capacity has probably been reduced. Still, counting in stockpiles from the summer months, I believe it is likely that they will have an equivalent number of PS3s ready for the holiday season. My prediction, thus, is 18-19 million units sold by the end of the year: 1 million per month for October-December.

Microsoft has never boasted a manufacturing capacity as big as Sony's or Nintendo's. However, the price cut presents a problem for holiday availability: it blew too many units too quickly, and I don't think Microsoft will be able to recover its stockpiles quickly enough. Assuming MS was wise enough to hold some in reserve, it may be able to sell only slightly less than the PS3, at some 2.5 million worldwide, for a total of 23-24 million by the end of the year.

Quick summary:
Nintendo: 37-38 million
Sony: 18-19 million
Microsoft: 23-24 million

But I also don't believe that raw numbers are the only parts of the story worth telling. The 360 will sell less than the PS3, but will be perceived to be in greater demand because of the shortages (will it actually BE in higher demand? I don't know, and there won't really be a way to measure it anyway). It might even be perceived as in greater demand than the Wii, though I have my doubts on that. The Wii, infamous for being hard to find, will actually be perceived as the Great Available Console this year, despite still selling out ridiculously fast. The PS3 is the one that really stands to lose out here; while it will of course sell out, it is cursed with being in the middle of the pack supply-wise: it won't have rarity or availability to boost it.

One last question: was the timing of the 360 price cut a means of stealthily engineering a holiday shortage? The timing seems awfully strange when you could wait a couple of months and ride the holiday wave, unless the plan was to exhaust your stockpiles so that the resulting holiday shortage would look legitimate.