MikeB on 26 September 2007
Watch how the release of Halo 3 impacts the sales of the XBox 360 over the next 4 weeks ... You'll see a large spike in sales this week followed by elevated sales for a couple of weeks and then sales will return to normal.
I think Halo 3 will especially have a profound impact in the US. For Japan I don't think it will perform much better than Gears of War did. I think Europe will probably take middleground, with the game having most impact in the UK.
Sony would need to release a game of Halo 3's calibur every week for months to be able to build enough sustained momentium to catch up which simply won't happen; this generation is being decided now while the PS3 is on the sidelines in a Blu-Ray cheerleader outfit.
I think lowering the price in coming years and their currently impressive games line-up will do a lot of good. Especially for Japan I expect major gains with the release of Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII (& Versus XIII), Monster Hunter 3, White Knight Story and Metal Gear Solid 4.
I also think the PS3 versions of Biohazard 5 (Resident Evil 5), The Last Remnant, Shin Sangoku Musou 5 (Dynasty Warriors 6) and Devil May Cry 4 will have much greater impacts than the XBox 360 versions. This due to the games listed above being of greater importance and the XBox 360 and Microsoft having a rather bad reputation in Japan.
