It's not blind hope or faith and I'm not saying Microsoft are infallible at all, if they came out and said 'Oh Disneyland adventures will propel us to 1st place' then I'd start to worry and agree with you lot. It's just confidence. The E3 announcement, the dedicated interviews, the update everytime we get a new NPD. Do you honestly think they they're doing all that on a hunch? really?
I'm quite surprised so many are in denial and ignorant of the way MS have been conducting themselves over this the last 4/5 months, it isn't simple marketing spiel like 'We'll be first this gen' something no-one could possibly realistically predict, it's obviously come from internal data that covers a short period in the near future, something far far easier to predict.
My reasoning is Microsoft initiating Kinect perfectly this christmas. To casuals Kinect is a console, they see Kinect on tv (with 360 obviously) and they go to the store and they ask for a Kinect 360. It's selling like a console. I'd also like to see updated shipment figures (although I don't doubt at all that it's slowed down, just not as much as we have shown here, imo).
To say 'oh it's not a new product' is such ... I don't know, damage control? No console (from my memory) peaked in its first holiday. Why would casuals lap up Kinect last xmas and then not care again, but they would for every other casual centric thing? You're not thinking in their boots. What exactly is your reasoning for consoles peaking typically in their third year and Kinect not? It has its own mindshare (heck the most last christmas) its own games, its own price point etc.
My basis is Microsoft will cut the price, I don't believe they think they can do it without that, they're just waiting for the perfect opportunity. If they got the Kinect bundle down to mass market price (Vs $299 last xmas) that's a $100 cut they can advertise with Kinect. Advertising sequels is perfectly fine, look at Just Dance 2. $100 bundle cut, advertising the kinect games, along with the hoopla of their 10th anniversary and new dashboard update as well as the TV offerings, will cause a big buzz in the U.S as well as no shortages this time around.
I reserve judgement on how the PS3 will do this holiday, until I see their Q3 shipments. I would say Wii is more of a threat than PS3 though. If you have a casual hit during christmas, a core console beating it is an uphill struggle. You seem to forget who the market belongs to during the holidays.
Also didn't analysts put PS3 at 10% above 360 for H1? If they were correct and we were wrong (I'm sure it's perfectly feasible it could be vice versa) then the gap is 240k larger than it should be.
