I'm a little surprised that a moderator would come into this thread and perpetuate the unprovable claims so many Sony fans have been using to downplay M$' recent success. There is no evidence that a larger percentage of the new 360s are being sold to existing owners than the PS3 Slim. It is possible of course but to my mind no group of fans are more rabid and protective of 'their' console than this generation's Playstation Nation. If anyone is more likely to put a second box in their home or give their old one to a relative it is vocal, adamant PS3 supporters. There are always exceptions and maybe I have a biased viewpoint from what I read here at VGC.
Trying to prove that Sony now has more buyers with the SW sales achieved in 1/2 a year featuring the first HD editions of GOW and FF and several high-profile exclusives is ignoring that fact. Sony also outsold M$ by millions of consoles since Slim launched and they are now reaping the rewards. 360 SW sales will likewise increase late this year and in 2011 as new owners fill in their libraries with exclusives and multi-plats as well. The growth will not be as noticeable as the Slim's surge was larger and probably longer than the new 360's and it will be partially disguised by the holiday sell-a-thon. That's assuming Kinect is only mildly successful in pushing new HW and only slightly more popular than Move.
360 has a 110m unit lead in SW and almost 2 pts. in tie ratio. Without a radical and long-term reversal that is not going to change. The SW gap will likely open further this fall if multi-plat titles like Fallout Vegas and Black Ops continue the fairly standard pattern of outselling their PS3 counterparts by anywhere from one half to several million units. Check both Assassin's Creeds. Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption etc. before declaring any pattern to the contrary. PS3 may win a month later in a title's life but rarely win the battle. Meanwhile M$ exclusives like Reach, and Fable 3 will outperform Sony's corresponding genre exclusives by large margins. The only way Sony will 'sell' more SW this fall or this gen. is to give it away. GT5 will buck the trend but can't reverse it.
This thread is somewhat mis-labelled as Sony would have to be making money overall to be making more on their SW. Gross income from 1st party SW units completely ignores the potential drawback to Sony's advantage as almost any HD dev can lose money. Sony would eat that loss. Perhaps they have in a few cases. M$ will not. A relative lack of 1st party devs is not necessarily a problem and running around buying expensive, existing studios is not a solution. Jmos obviously.
