Lets assume the Xbox 360 does come in last place this generation but its still a much closer 3 horse race than last time, it sold better than the original Xbox , finally becomes profitable, and still manages to have the largest console based online community. Now lets say the Playstation brand comes in second, beats Microsoft with a huge presence in Japan where Microsoft failed to penetrate, and  overall out sold the 360 by 30 million WW. But all this came at the cost of losing considerable market share compared to the PS2, they never made a profit, and the format war is still in a stalemate.  This is a very realistic possibility so all people obsessed with total units sold and a way to determine the "winner" is wrong. More units doesnt even equate to more software sold sometimes as looking at the PSP which now has an installed base of 30 million but never has games entering the charts. The 360 ,with only 13 million owners , sells more software than all these other systems like the DS, PSP, PS2 and so on. In my opinion, the Wii and 360 are complete successes no matter how you cut it especially if you compare it to the last generation.

360 is definitely heading into success territory now with the system actually beginning to turn a profit. If it can keep that up then I'd consider it a success. In this respect, I think the original Xbox was as much a failure as a success - it survived an entire generation and easily outsold any "failed" console, but it did so with the help of a billion dollar per year defecit.

PS3's entire first year has been a failure, I don't think it will ever surpass 360 in LTD sales, let alone beat it by 30 million units. But it could at least turn around from "huge failure" to "mixed success" over the next couple of years.

Everything is relative, ask Einstein.

The 360 is well on its way to success because MS has to be turning a profit on hardware. If they're profiting on hardware, a holiday season with profitable hardware is great but when you combine the fact that your major competitor is hemorraging money over that same holiday period to keep up, MS has to be pretty pleased with themselves right now.

Relative to c. Get it right.

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Yes, the real successes will be in profit margins (Nintendo +++, Microsoft +, Sony ---) and brand or franchise loyalty for the next generation (uncertain, but the Playstation brand is dying).

 Where are you getting numbers that say the 360 software is outselling the DS software? What are the totals?

I assume eugene meant US only for DS software, because elsewhere the DS is the software master (and hardware too in fact)

Yes there are very few points anyone could use to determine the Wii or 360 as a failure thus far, or indeed the DS.
With the 360 you could argue it still hasn't properly entered the Japanese market and hasn't really set many PAL regions on fire, but then in Japan at least it is doing considerably better than it's predecessor (not sure about PAL yet...seems about the same i think)...Also you could argue it could have been a much bigger success without the RROD.

The Wii possibly has even fewer negative points, those being the poor early (though now considerably better) third party support, and erm, maybe the lack of storage but i don't think that can really be considered a point to determine less success.....And again a point that could have meant even greater success is the supply issue.

 TWRoO, I'm having trouble finding the numbers showing the DS software to Xbox360 software comparison in the US only. Help me out here mate and post the numbers.

For most people success is measured in relation to past performance and expectations. The XBox 360 is interesting because it is outperforming the original XBox in many ways and yet fails to meet the sales expectations that have been set for it.

On the front page, where it lists the current numbers for the generation, click on America , europe, or Japan.