Though I've proven to be too bullish on 360 several times now, I think 13 million through Dec is too little. Though the 10 million mark now looks like it won't come until the middle of May (wow), and then the 11 million mark not until August, GTA4 and Halo3 are both games which can provide one-month boosts of 400-600K units for the system. Without those games, it could do well over 2 million WW in Nov/Dec alone (historically, XBox has done 500K/1mil in Nov/Dec in NA alone). However, the boosts will only be for one month, and then almost completely disappear. 360 will stay below 1.5 million in Dec in NA, even at a $300 price point for the Pro. But that will get the LTD for the system up to maybe 15 million. Of course 360 would want to be at 15 million through Dec WITHOUT help from those one-time-boost games just to keep pace with the 6mil/year of the XBox... But 200K in March was a pretty pathetic showing... Basically wiping out the notion that 360 had gained momentum and was ready to explode this year...

Nintendo has been pretty quiet these past few months. They are enjoying selling every single Wii without even making any awesome game announcements or advertising or anything. I bet when they get that 2nd factory going, they will start announcing awesome new things. My prediction: Dec 31 2008 Wii: 19 mil 360: 15 mil PS3: 8 mil

20 million by the end of 2007 is a bit much there, john lucas. I am going to estimate that PS3 will somewhat bounce back with ~8 million by december of this year. 360 will keep pace at 15 million, and the Wii will match 360 at 14-15 million.

My prediction for Dec 31, 2007:

Wii: 16 million

360: 15 million

PS3: 7.5 million

 Wii - Will continue to sell very well but wide availability in the coming months will cause demand to cool down slightly when people no longer have to line up or hunt for them.  Items that are in limited supply and high demand always seems to fuel even more demand and that fueling will be lost for the Wii with wide availability.

360 - A string of solid exclusives and the release of Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 4 will move several million units over Christmas.  Weak demand will remain in Japan except for a few small blips when exclusive rpgs are released.  A price drop in October would likely help move a lot of units but with Microsoft's Home and Entertainment division under intense pressure to make the Xbox 360 more profitable it's unlikely to happen.

PS3 - Will still be hurt by it's high pricetag and it's few good exclusives will move a few million units worldwide.  Sony has to be extremely careful or it may begin a dangerous downward spiral of game companies not releasing games until the installed base is built up and the installed base not being built up because of game companies not releasing games for it.  Sony needs to pull an ace from it's sleeve this Christmas or not even Gran Turismo will be able to save it next year.

Once a few *good* games are out, with exceptional gfx - it shouldn't be hard for Sony to upp the sales ante.

Excellent graphics make for excellent TV ads (and other forms of media), and Im sure Sony have a large marketing budget scheduled for this Xmas.

I would *almost* expect everything to sell out completely (over the Xmas period) - given GTA4, Halo & more.

Good post again source. But id like to add a few things PS3- Why do people keep saying about GTA IV giving a great boost to 360 sales, its coming out for ps3 as well you know - it will boost both :P It also should have MGS4 coming out this year with a few more exclusives, it might start selling more than you think 360- Has some nice exclusives coming out this year as well as GTAIV. It will get a boost from this but im not sure it will be as big as other consoles get from games this month. Wii- Until it is widely aviable at all shops - big games probably wont effect sales that much. It will still sell out with new releases or not. Im not going to predict actual numbers, but by the end of 2007 im guessing Wii will be in the lead with 360 2nd and ps3 slightly behind in 3rd. Christmas will have a big effect on sales too, its the Wii and ps3s 2nd christmas(in JP and NA) which usually is one of the biggest selling times in a consoles lifetime judging from the past. And its europes first christmas wih the ps3 But its hard to tell which games will get good receptions and will make people actually buy consoles.

Mainly price and available games can (potentially) provide a much larger boost for the XBox 360 than the PS3. It is likely that the XBox 360 will have the priemium bundle down to $300 by the time GTA 4 is released while the PS3 will be at $500 or $600; add to this the sales boost the XBox 360 will likely see from Halo 3 and it makes sense that the XBox 360 could sell a lot more copies of GTA 4 than the PS3.

Time for another update..now that we have Nintendo financial data.

Hardware sold worldwide: 19.17 million

360 ~ 50.2% (looks like May will be the month this dips below 50%)

Wii ~  33.4% (think of it this way, 360 sales are only 1.5x greater than Wii, despite 3x the length of sales time)

PS3 ~ 16.4% (may shrink below 15% pre-Fall)

Japan total hardware sold: 3.46 million

Wii ~ 63.9% (can go much higher if it keeps outselling PS3 by 5 or 6 or 7 to 1)

PS3 ~ 25.4% (shrinking)

360 ~ 10.7% (should be under 10% in a few weeks)

Americas total hardware 9.87 million

360 ~ 60.5% (unassailable lead I think)

Wii ~ 25.7% (May hit 35% market share by year end)

PS3 ~ 13.8% (May hit 20% marketshare by year end) 

Others total hardware 5.84 million

360 ~ 56% (down to 40-45% by year end I think)

Wii ~ 28.4% (up to 35% by year end I think)

PS3 ~ 15.6% (20-25% by year end I think)

How I look at marketshare in this industry:

90%+ Monopolistic/Complete Dominance by one company

80%+ Dominance by one company

70% + Strong Winner, Healthy number 2 possible, number 3 can be profitiable if everything goes right..

60% + Healthy Winner, Fierce battle for 2nd place, number 3 can be profitable fairly easily

50%+ Winner, but fierce competition, 2nd place guy can gain alot next time, 3rd guy can do very well too

35-50% Usually a period of waning dominance, transition, or intense competition between two of the big three

25-35% Almost always enough for a strong second place finish.

15%-25% Weak Position, can't afford to lose more ground

5-15% Almost impossible to come back  

0-5% Impossible to come back.

Looking at how each generation played out then..

8 Bit: NES - 90%+

16 Bit (SNES, Gen only) - SNES - 61.5%, Genesis - 38.5%

32 Bit (PS1, N64, Sat only) - PS1 - 72.1%, N64 - 23.2%, Saturn - 4.8%

Online Gen* (DC, PS2, Xbox, GC) PS2 - 66.9%, Xbox - 14.8%, GC - 12.8%, DC - 5.5%

Current Gen (360, Wii, PS3) 360 - 50.2%, Wii - 33.4%, PS3 - 16.4%

Current Gen in 1 year from now (prediction)    Wii - 42%, 360 - 36%, PS3 - 22%

Final Current Generation (2012) Wii - 38%, PS3 - 33%, 360 - 29%

 * PS2 is still selling, so these percentages will shrink for Xbox, GC, DC until PS2 is fully dead

very interesting, but why do you think the wii will lose market share from 08 to 12?

There are a variety of factors... The PS3/360 will sustain large price drops allowing both to come into mass-market prices, whereas the Wii already is at that comfortable price. Also, I hate to say it, but I believe the lack of online, HD and graphics and a focus just on the controller will end up hurting the Wii in 09-12 until Nintendo releases the next Wii with somewhat better graphics.