XBox 360 will ship 50 million by December 2010. Sell through I expect just short of 50 million. Three months to go though and the best sales months ahead accounting for 30 to 40% sales for the year.

The 360 may sell 50 million before the end of 2010. It could fall short say less than one million away from 50 million. 50 million before 2010 and resulting in 12 million XBox 360 sales for the year 2010 is possible.

Halo: Reach, Kinect, Fable 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops and the momentum of the 360 Slim will encourage new owners to jump on board the XBox 360. Jump in. 

Best year for XBox 360 console sales after 5 years on the market- confirmed.

AMAZING SALES

And we could see it potentially outsell the Wii this holidays in America.......unprecedented for a 2nd place console in its 5th year........absolutely unprecedented!

Great sales...

But it won't  reach 50m this year.

It depends on kinect which a really unpredictable factor. The xbox360 will have good sales numbers even without kinect but nobody knows what kind of marketing MS will use and what effect this could have on sales . It can lead the 360 to monster sales in November December , esp. in NA (which is the biggest  market at the holiday season since November is nothing special in Europe , i know i am from Europe) .

@kowenicki

Because I don't believe in 20% or more yoy from last year in holidays... months with low demand is more easy to see 40-50% yoy but in Holidays not.

The final number will be near 50m like 49.4-49.6m.

Amazing numbers.

EDIT- OP talks about shipped numbers... so it is likely to happen... VGC numbers I don't believe.

If KINECT is a hit then its in the bag.

very true. good luck with that.

Even 49 million would be amazing. Im counting on 48 mill though after adjustments.

Im with you on that

The only thing stopping it really is the cap of sales. However, even for 2 months, if Kinect proves to be the gift of the holiday it could easily eclipse what the max for HD consoles has been. I think its entirely possible based on the success of the Slim combined with Kinect this holiday.

I had it pegged at about 48.5-49 million by 1 Jan. But the Reach boost was 20% above my low end estimate for Reach week and 11% above my high end estimate. If 360 does 20% above my previous year end estimate then 50 million is on the cards. It's still a stretch but it's certainly more likely now than it was before I saw the Reach boost.

Kinect is the make or break factor for getting to 50 million by year end.

2008 is really the sales reference point for this rather than 2009 given the sales levels at the moment are more comparable to 2008.

So 21 Sept-3 jan 2008 sales were 6,242,497

2010 it needs to sell 6,666,700

So it needs to exceed 2008 sales by 6.8%. I always expected 360 to slightly undersell this period in 2008 so doing nearly 7% better is still a fairly tall order. But 360s and Reach effect has surprised me up to now so it could to keep surprising me.

As this is a sales site lets do a week by week comparison table with 2008 to see what 360 needs to sell each week from here on in to make it to 50 million on VGC (shipped is a guaranteed 50 million so it's not even an interesing subject for debate, great milestone though)

So there you have it. Week by week sales comparison with 2008 for 360 to break 50 million on VGC by 1 Jan 2010. Notice, that unless 360 has some really big weeks prior ot December the 360 is going to need close to a 1 million week either on WE 18 Dec or WE 25 Dec. SHould be fascinating to watch this one unfold.

I think next week it will be close to or slightly above what it needs (Reach boost carry over). But for October I think it will be down, possily even below 2008 sales. So at Kinect launch it will be running behind what it needs and it will be very interesting to see if Kinect gets 360 across the line from a slightly lower position due to October shortfall.

One thing is for certain though. This will be 360's peak year to date. But if Kinect really takes off then with a 2011 price cut 360's peak year could be 2011.