Its that time of the year again, time to make the prediction which will make people mad.

This is the situation last year and the year before for the 10 weeks to holidays:

So with with first example the Xbox 360 made an unanswered price cut and outsold the PS3 considerably, whilst with 2007 the PS3 made a massive price cut and barely edged the Xbox 360 in sales. However this year there is unlikely to be an unanswered price cut from either party so the relative results should be somewhere between these two points.

Heres the reason why:

As we can see the U.S.A becomes a stronger market than the E.U and the weekly sales differential swings wildly. Currently this weeks sales ratio for the PS360 between the U.S and the E.U is 8:11 in favour of the E.U, whilst during the holidays that ratio swings to between close to 1:1 or 6:5 in favour of the Americas. So just by the changing ratios between the different regions it swings the balance in favour of the Xbox 360 because that is its strongest region.

Beyond that the nature of the market changes. In a season of gift giving, and casual purchasers its the Xbox Arcade which rules. With fewer brand/feature concious people relative to price/relative price concious people the Arcade is the SKU of choice for people. The sales for last year said it all, Microsoft simply could not keep the Arcade in stock in many places and demand outstripped supply.

Im not going to predict the actions of Microsoft, they are a total PITA to predict sometimes. I think a reasonable assumption to make is that Xbox 360 sales for this holiday season will roughly equal the last years holiday season. I think its reasonable to assume that we will see a $150 Arcade this year, because Microsoft seems to understand the psycological importance of the Arcade being precisely half the price of the PS3. Any price cuts here will be to sustain but not increase sales, theres no reason to as the sales are already quite good.

As for Sony I think that a base sales rate of about 3M consoles follows the declining trends from last year quite nicely so any increase in sales would have to be relative to the 3M consoles they would be expected to sell had the price remained at $400. Thats taking into account the release of their exclusives at the end of the year. Because I think they will cut the price in early September by 25% I would say that they will miss out a lot of the short run increases in sales in the holiday season, but they will be factored into the overall numbers they sell to hit their 13M target.

I would predict a 50% increase in sales over where they would have been had they not done a price cut, so 4.5M is where I think it'll be and the Xbox 360 will probably sit somewhere in the 4.8-5.5M range as well. So there you have it, PS3 sales will be strong but I believe that the Xbox 360 will just edge the PS3 out by between 300-900k units, most likely around 500k.

I think Microsoft had better come up with some games if they want to match last year's holiday success. So far they've got nothing and nothing comparable to a Gears or even a Fable.

@Squid

Surprisingly, I actually agree with both the numbers, and the bottom line.

^ They have the games, they just haven't talked about them yet.

Thanks Werekitten.

     I think my first prediction in this thread is that no xbox holiday '09 game will result in the sale of as many 360s as  Gears of War 2 did during the holiday of '08 meanwhile games like Uncharted 2, GT5, and FFXIII in Japan will result in many more PS3 sales regardless of price cuts than LBP, Resistance 2, and Valkyrie Chronicles did the last holiday season.

hmmm, this is awesome
*eats popcorn and watches with joy*

I don't think anyone can predict anything tell E3. This show could change gaming forever if Microsoft has their way. My guess is that they have decide to open the Xbox platform to any manufacture that wants to build the system. Thus alloing every Blu-ray player sold in the future to effectivly be an Xbox 360.

That is what I would call an entertainment changing move. Just imagine 500M 360 in homes by 2013.

How can you make a prediction like that when you have no idea how many Xbox 360s Gears 2 sold for Microsoft nor how many PS3sLBP, R2 and VC sold for Sony? Thats really no prediction at all.

 I agree... E3 will really give us an idea of how things are going to run... right now everyone expects a price cut from sony this summer, but I think a price cut around the time MS did it last year would have a much greater impact