Very difficult to say.
Microsoft are still sticking to their #1 WW 2011 (which they've said is sold to consumers not shipments) and we have 7 weeks till the end of the year? I've said before, they're not infallible, but this is a message they've been consistant with month in month out, i just don't see how they can predict something within a short timeframe, and get it so wrong. Just doesn't seem possible to me. They could miss it by a few hundred K, but to fall behind in shipments (let alone sales) by 2 mill for the year, when with 7 weeks to go in the year they say they're going to be #1? Do you think a bunch of monkeys work at Microsoft or something?
In terms of PS3 shipments, I see 6.5 - 7 mill (with the remaining growth they expect either not happening or being in Q1) In the U.S Anita Fraizer the lady that works for NPD (in some sort of fashion I believe) has said she expects PS3 to be flat yoy in the U.S, October NPD certainly points to that. Japan, how much growth can Japan fesiably generate over Q4? for the first 5 weeks of this Q it's up about 25k overall, that's peanuts. So it rests on a GT5less EMEAA. Sony never fail to surprise me with their shipments, so 7 mill plus wouldn't surprise me, not much more than that though.
X360 and PS3 tied in shipments last holiday, not sales though, 360 was vastly in shortage as shown in their Q1 shipments (Q110was nearly double any previous Q1 in 360's life) I don't know how many of those shipped in Q1 were suppose to be for Q4, but you can easily imagin 700k, (which would stll have given Q110 360's highest Q1 by over 25% (600k)) so 7 mill shipped.
EMEAA has the potential to be up, down, or flat, I can't call it. It depends on what microsoft has plans for there, with EMEAA not being X360/Kinect crazy, and with giftcards not being all the rage there, AND with Wii and PS3 getting price cuts there, it'll baffle me if MS don't cut there if their other plans arnt working. U.S is where they can see good growth though, very good growth. Never underestimate casuals in the holiday season.
I still expect X360 to come first this year, to do so they need to ship 1.3M+ ish over PS3 to do it in sales like they've said, so I expect the shipments gap to be about 3.4m?
I expect the VGC sales to be almost exactly the same as well.
Nov NPD should be the telltale as to whether they're succeeding with being #1 though, as if they announce they're 'on track to be #1' with only 3 weeks to go before the end of the year it's almost a dead cert. If they go quiet then it looks like they're not doing well. By then we'll be into Dec though and VGC should be giving us a good idea on how sales are going.
