I personally don't think the xbox 360's last place finish, (this week by vgchartz)...all of November and December, by my predictions... means necessarily that xbox 360 is faultering.

But I do think that when PS3 is beating the xbox 360, and when the PS2, is in turn beating both the xbox 360 and PS3 (at least it did so in North American market)....its hard to not think of Sony, which has two products dominating the xbox 360, as doing somewhat better than microsoft.

 Of course the Nintendo Wii is the real story.

But what I've noticed is, one week in last place...and you've been forever in last place.  One week in first place, and you've totally turned things around.....bunk!

 It seems how the comments go, but in reality, this week is only marginally different from last week.

 Sony did surprise me by moving so many units at $399...I thought they would have to dig deeper.

But I think a balanced, analysis, will show that Sony will turn profitable next year...Microsoft this year.

But that is only in the funny world of accounting...to actually, take profits that exceed the already accounted for multiple billiions in losses...both MS and Sony have a ways to go.

 In terms of expectations, i have to say both MS and Sony are failures.  MS has only one system on the list at all, its in dead last place.  Even in north america, being trounced by DS, PSP, Wii, even PS2 sales...and thats their great market.

 Sony, once dominate, giving up the lead to Nintendo...not by a little either...being trounced.

 So in balance, Nintendo great.   Sony and Microsoft...respectable.  That's what I think anyway.  I don't understand the great enthusiasm for Microsoft, when Microsoft is generally expected to dominate a market, they've been in the video game market for many years, and they've failed to do that.

Well tell me when Sony can sale many units than Microsoft in America or better yet dethrone Microsoft in America.

I have ALWAYS said

if 360 CAN'T beat ps3 By a LARGE margin in 08 Holidays then it won't come 2nd when all is said and done

this year it has HALO 3, MASS EFFECT, bioshock & many other great games

if not now then when??

When they hit that $199 price tag :)

 Neither one of these companies is even close to tapping the enormous price-consious consumer market and whoever does it first will reap the rewards (or, actually second behind Nintendo).

PS3 has 7 million units to catch up on. If each month they sell, uh, 416 units worldwide more than Xbox 360 (And Christmas is the most likely time to do so because price isn't a factor), then it will only take 17,500 months to catch up. See you in the year 3400CE.

And that company will be Microsoft

Even though I'm suprised that the PS3 wound up besting the X360's total sales this week, it's not totally suprising.

We use it alot, but still: the PS3's $400 pricetag is now within some sort of "more mass market" price than the $500 tag. This bodes very well for it.

However, the big question is: how long does this hold? When will Microsoft drop the X360 price to compete?

As much as I'm happy to see the PS3 finally compete in the global market, and now seems to have traction in their worst territories (Japan mainly, and the US secondly), it's important to see where it ends up in December. We're only at the beginning of the fast-paced sales weeks. What happens if we've seen the majority of increases with the price drop? What if we haven't? There are lots of questions.

Even if the PS3 does outsell the X360 worldwide, overall, in Nov-Dec, I still see this as short term. When January rolls around, I feel that MS will drop the price for GTAIV, and start to outsell the PS3 again. Add in the 7 million unit gap, and the PS3 has a really, really long way to go before it really competes with the other 2 systems.

As for the X360, last week, it sold 65,000 more units vs. last year. Pretty decent. Looks like it's trending to around 15.9-16.3m units before the end of the year. Definately a much stronger year-end showing than last year.

do you guys know if microsoft already makes money on the 360?

i mean for each unit sold?

I totally agree mrstickball, I think its just a little holiday rush so consumers can get PS3. Sony released the PS3 during the holidays to make it seem like the 40GB is doing something but really its the holiday rush. People are just buying PS3, so really when the holidays is over, it will be the games that will judge how the console will sell. 

Then we will truly know if the 40GB PS3 is selling or not.