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crumas2 on 05 August 2009
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Slimebeast said:

Face it, MS can't counter a $299 PS3 this Holiday season.

A $50 X360 price drop would be nowhere near enough to lift the sales up to PS3 Slim levels. A $299 Slim would lift the PS3 sales by 45% on average for the rest of 2009 (a lot higher in the first couple of weeks of course).

The only hope is that Sony can't afford to sell the Slim for $299 this year, or even $349, or else it's game over for Xbox in this generation.

You can quote me on this.

That's quite a claim.  Usually I agree with your predictions, but this one seems very unlikely.

Let's do a little math...

Assuming that Sony actually managed to pull off a $299 slim model for Christmas season 2009, and assuming that would lift the PS3 sales by 45% for the season, and assuming they actually managed to have the units on the shelf by Sep 1:

1. PS3 total sales for September through December 2008: 4.3m

2. 4.3m x 1.45 = 6.2m

3. 360 total sales for September through December 2008: 6.5m

 

Let's build a few scenarios with the same assumption that the PS3 sees a 45% bump Sep-Dec year-on-year compared to 2008:

1. 360 sales for Sep-Dec 2009 = Sep-Dec 2008: the 360 outsells the PS3 by 300k units and widens the gap from 8.5 to 9m units total.

2. 360 sales for Sep-Dec 2009 = 80% Sep-Dec 2008: the PS3 outsells the 360 by 1m units and reduces the gap from 8.5m to 7.5m units total.

3. 360 sales for Sep-Dec 2009 = 1/2 Sep-Dec 2008: the PS3 outsells the 360 by 3m units and reduces the gap from 8.5m to 5.5m units total.

4. 360 sales for Sep-Dec 2009 = 1/4 Sep-Dec 2008: the PS3 outsells the 360 by 4.6m units and reduces the gap from 8.5m to 4m units total.

 

How likely are those 4 scenarios?

Scenario 1 is possible, but unlikely unless MS provides another price cut, perhaps $50 per unit.

Scenario 2 is--in my opinion--the most likely assuming MS does nothing but normal holiday advertizing.

Scenario 3 is not very likely... the 360 selling half as much in 2009 year-on-year compared to the same period in 2008 would be a shocker.

Scenario 4 is... well... rediculous unless MS decides it wants to exit the business or we go from recession into worldwide economic collapse, in which case all consoles will experience an immediate and longlasting reduction in unit sales somewhere between 90-100%.

In conclusion, I don't see the game being over for 360 this generation regardless what Sony does.