You are cruel... But we will never give up hope.

Besides, we still have second place.

If they dropped the price along with the slim model maybe. I don't think the Slim PS3 would have sold as much without being 100$ cheaper than the old model. Sony did it to save money on manufacturing costs and to sell more, MS only needs to sell more. That's what they think Natal will do for them. If the Xbox somehow becomes too expensive to make and sell at the pricepoint that's when we should be getting a slim.

all consoles may see a slow down with E3 around the corner people could expect price cuts or slims

I doubt that it has had any significant impact. I suspect rumours of Natal enabled consoles are more a cause although I would also suggest this to be insignificant numbers.

No, this is more an evolutionary cycle which will be corrected if they get it right by Natal and also a Slim if one exists.

May the hype train sally forth!

I blame the PS3 slim and awesome line up for the first half o this year as the culprits

In the past this may of had a grain of truth but as this generation is more about reinventing themselves they are unlikely to kill the console off rather just by it a new outfit and send it on its way again.

Thats the only reason it did sell. Most people were waiting on a price drop of the PS3 before they got one. Since september I went from knowing 4 people in the real with PS3s to over 20 people. The reason why was because it became affordable The PS3 would have sold the same if it was a normal PS3 selling for 300 euros. Your right a xbox 360 slim wouldn't sell well without a pricecut. The same with the PS3 slim, if that didn't come with a price drop it wouldn't have sold.

I'm not sure, developers are already pushing the bar way too hard to keep innovating on the current consoles. Many people claim a new gen is light years away because of developing costs but it is becoming cheaper to make a game like Crysis or Stalker than adapt Uncharted/Alan Wake visuals, physics etc. to the limited console hardware.

you do realize that only interested gamers like us are probably the only ones that have heard anything about slim rumors, and we make up way less of the market than most of us think. Now maybe if its announced, it might lower sales but i doubt Microsoft would announce a slim without preparing for the potential loss in sales on current models.

Was just gonna say Natal 360's are the likely cause if at all. My local retailer GAME, already answers questions instore with yes Natal + 360 will be sold together with every console come October. So many know it's coming.

But we will never know. The 360 will hit huge sales if M$ just finish the last part of Natal marketing correctly. New console launch. Expect fireworks.