The day that PS3 hits $199 it will see some massive sales, however I can't make up my mind whether or not they will do a $50 price drop in 2011 or a $100.  Either way they def should cut price next year because there's no doubt MS will. They released a redesign this year with no price cut so they obviously are using that as ammo at next years E3.  A $199 PS3 is VERY competitive in the market.

I think PS3 already had it's peak year in sales in 2009. If you follow PS3's sales curve it's nearly identical to PSP (seriously), and PSP had it's peak year 2 years ago.

Yes the PS3 is up year on year from 2009, but thats all from the Slim effect. You will see PS3's year on year sales go down now since the PS3 was released last August, and if you read the year to year comparision that VGchartz themselves make, they agree with me. They say to expect PS3 year on years sales to be down from 2009 for the rest of the year, except maybe the week GT5 comes out.

I think we will see a price cut to 199€ next year, so I guess 2011 will be its' peak year. Before the price drop in 2011 I could imagine that Move or at least GT5 keeps sales on good level, which would make it even easier to reach the most sales in 2011. But 2010 also looks very promising so far, so... we'll see.

2012

2011

I'm thinking another major hardware revision accompanied by a $199 MSRP for Q4 is a pretty likely scenario.

Although if that's the case, 2012 stands a good chance as well since the majority of sales on a reduced price SKU would not all happen in Q4 2011.

"however, realistically, i can see MS announcing a new console next year or the year after. "

MS has said this console will last much longer.. The "'EARLIEST' I'd seem them pulling out a new console is late 2012 and this will quickly make the old 360 obsolete, which means one thing.. Sony will know they can't delay again either because the PS3 will never last or sell as long as the PS2, which was launched and sold nearly two years without any real competition !! ( Game Cube which was inferior was released nearly 1.5 years later .. and Xbox 1 was nearly 2 years later ) .. I expect Sony this time to take competition more seriously.. In Fact you can expect Sony, MS, and Nintendo to release new consoles a bit closer to each other in the next round.. Competition is getting tough, and Sony needs more sales in America to come back stronger..

the console alread peaked, it will still end in last place in sales

Why does 2009 seem highly unlikely? Just because most people voted for 2011, doesn't make it so. 2009 introduced the Slim model, it boosted sales, and it's highly unlikely that 2010 sales will be as high as 2009. Yes a price cut to $200 will push consoles, but i beleive the Slim effect will have been stronger. Popular vote means noting, do you ever pay attention to the "Most Wanted" Section of VGChartz? This website is largly composed of Nintendo fans or Sony fans, to the point where a niche game like Tales of Grace is more wanted then Halo Reach. Popular vote means nothing when the large portion of voters are Sony fans (some of which are hardcore fanboys).

PS3 sales mimic PSP sales if you allign launch dates, and look at PSP sales now. Despite the PSP being priced down to $130 in the states, and a variety of great titles being released, it's sales have plumited.

I bet in 2009 PSP fans and DS fans thought that their respective consoles could still have a peak year in the future, but they didn't.

The fact of the matter is that, as it looks right now, 2009 was Sony's peak year, and in 2010 their year end sales will most likely be lower. Sony's PS3's peak popularity is over, it's over the hill, and it's very rare to see a console rise again.

I mean look at PS2, it's peak year was 2002, only 2 years after launch in Japan, and just 1 year after launch everywhere else. It had a jump in 2005 to 90% of peak year sales, but genrally after 2002, sales slowly declined, and in 2007 sales were 50% of peak sales. This is what is most likely to happen to the PS3, just on a shorter interval (PS2 will have a much longer tail, saleswise)

Sony has released a new game with all of their IP's and now it's simply making sequels, hype will fall for PS3, and in 2012 people are going to start looking for a new console. Sony wouldn't even consider releasing a PS4 if PS3 was selling super well in 2011.

PSP had it's peak year in 2008, and now in 2010 sales are about half of what they used to be. Since the PS3 has followed the PSP sales curve for the last 4 years very accuratly, it's probably going to do the same. So 2012 PS3 should only sell 6 million consoles worldwide.

I mean think about it, do you honestly beleive the PS3 will have it's peak year, 5 years after the launch of the console? No console has ever done that before, sales do not build up that slowly, and even with a price cut, it's just not going to be able to keep sales up.

Sony estimated that the PS3's lifespan would be 10 years, it didn't sell as well as expected so now it's planned to have an 8 year life. If you follow sales data, that would imply a peak year in terms of sales in about 3 years (since all consoles have their peaks before mid-life). This is what happened, Sony released the PS3 Slim during it's peak season, and that made a huge spike in sales. However now PS3, 360, and Wii are all on declining sales (after the 360 Slim effect wares off), and all a price cut can do is keep sales on par for an extra year. I mean will the Wii see another 24 million sold year just because the price drops to $130 (Same % reduction in PS3's price drop)? If sales do jump, don't you think MS and Sony will also make price drops to balance things out?

When it will drop to 199$.

There is a reason why the X360 was $199 ages ago.
Microsoft was actually able to recover the money by users buying a pricey $150 HardDisk and a network service called live for $50 per year.