How much will the PS3 outsell the Xbox 360 by next week?

[Sullla]

Kyros said:

oh come on. Titles like Lair and HEavenly Sword may have been hyped by PS fanboys but primarily Nintendo fanboys and 360 fans were making them into the last chance and turning point titles. Both failed (more or less) and still the PS3 is outselling the 360. And it will outsell the 360 heavily next week. MGS4 is big and it will change things a bit. But its no GTA, Gran Turismo or Final Fantasy. The true put-up or shut-up phase will start with Gran Turismo 5 and FFXIII.

Don't take this the wrong way, Kyros, but there were a LOT of Sony fans plugging these titles last year. (I know you weren't a part of this website then.) Motorstorm (the STORM is coming!), Lair, Heavenly Sword, Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted.... once these games arrived, the PS3 was going to rise up and crush its competitors. It was only after these games released and didn't do very much for sales that the story changed to "they were new IPs, no one expected much from them anyway." I do agree with you that Metal Gear Solid is the wrong game to be hyping, and that Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy are likely to do a lot more in terms of sales.

On topic, PS3 will probably be anywhere from 50-100k ahead of the 360 in sales next week. I don't see how sales could get higher than 250k for the week, but I've been surprised before. I expect sales to be right back to the current level a month from now, with PS3 selling slightly more than the 360 each week - something I don't expect to change much for the rest of the generation. The two consoles share 90% of the same games, so why would either one dramatically outsell the other? The whole competition for second place is pointless anyway. Neither platform is ever going to sell enough units to stop publishers from creating multiplatform 360/PS3 titles and create exclusives instead.