i think 360 may have an 8 million+ lead after fall results are out.........

[KBG29]

@leo-j

I think price and perception are the only thing that has ever mattered in any portion of the consumer market.

@OP

I think you are pretty much in the ballpark. PS3 really has no chance of keeping it close this year in tearms of sales. Like you mention the deals on 360 are just to good to pass up right now, and to tell the truth I am very pleased with that.

Personally I would much rather see people spending money on the PS3 as I see it as a better investment for consumers, and buisnesses. But to me it is much better seeing that PS3 and 360 sales are keeping the Wii below 50%, than it would be to see the Wii selling 75% of the consoles while PS3 just nudges past 360.

As long as the PS3 and 360 continue to make HD gaming a more valuable market to the publishers and devlopers that is were the games are going to be. At the moment the userbases on each HD system are close enough that both are going to get every big hit that comes out and that is one of the most imporatnt parts of a system staying viable.

To chime in on the possability of 3rd place for the generation I also want to add my name the the list of folks who understand that it is not all that bad. I feel the worst the PS3 can do is the combined sales of the Cube and Xbox, and that is very good. Sure many will say Sony lost first place and a ton of market share, but I think that is beyond the point. Sony went into this generation with a strong brand name, and they went ahead and took a chance. They could have easly made a cheap console with off the shelf AMD/Nvidia graphics card, kept DVD, and sold it at $299 at launch, and taken this generation no problem. Instead they gave the customers that decided to stick with them the best console on the market today, and by quite a large margin.

Right now the most important thing for the PS3 is that Sony stops bleeding money on the system. It has done a great job of building a strong foundation for the future of the brand, and the company. As far as this generation goes first place is not worth going for and getting into a mess with MS for second is a very bad idea. The best thing Sony can do is work as hard as possible to start making money on each unit sold, and go into the next generation with a nice reiteration of the PS3 using a new Cell+decent GPU, and faster Blu-ray drive.

For any people out there worried that this is the end for Sony, don't crap your pants. As long as Sony sticks with the $399 price tag until they can drop the price and stay profitable they will be fine. If they stay profiatable the awsome 1st party games can contiune to get the amount of care they need pumped into them, and as time marches on and price cuts occur sales will pick up. Remember last gen the PS2 sold 120m with the box and the cube below 25m. This generation is a much differant race, and each competitor has enough to live happly for quite a while.

I think this generation is going to last a long time as each company will be doing great, and making money. Really this is nearly as good as having a single console market.