Given that price cut is likely this year. I'd say so Kowenicki.

At this point im thinking somewhere between 1M less and 4M more than 2010 for 2011, a range of around 5M! It is just that we have too many variables such as the appeal of various Kinect releases, timing of price cuts and any other features they might or might not add. On balance im going for 15M as my baseline prediction for 2011 given we have 14M on the boards for 2010 already but the slim hardware effect is probably burning off so next year is all on Kinect and price cuts.

What will really give us an idea is January YOY comparing what Kinect does as we move outside of the initial short term boost. I can sort of see January as a month where Kinect sales become more dominant as a driver of the console sales compared to the other two so we can see how the drop in hardware sales compares to the Wii and PS3.

For price cuts im sort of expecting they do something in June, they had major success with the slim model in 2010 at E3 so announcing a price cut to all the gaming press there would be a good time to do something crazy like have Alan Greenburg walk onto the stage and announce "The Xbox 360 will start at $139" or something similar and then sit down to do some kind of funny mirroring of that famous Sony E3.

I agree. The Xbox 360 arcade will be $150 which is usually the magical price. They just need to pour out some decent Kinect software. They should have at least 80-100 titles for the Kinect by the end of the year. I see the XBox 360 having another strong year.

There was no doubt that it would suppass the 50 million mark this year. We'll see what the NPD shows and wait for an official announcement from Microsoft.

I was banned while it happened so...

Delayed congratulations

Here's to an even better 2011!

Is it wrong that I only noticed Carl was gone because of his signature?

I've mentioned before that this could unquestionably be the 360's peak year.  

- If Kinect really is something people want, demand could realistically carry into early spring before slowing down significantly.  Especially if MS has problems adjusting to such a demand during a time of year where shipments and production usually notably shows down.

- MS has yet to give a good picture of what Kinect will bring in 2011.  CES (tonight possibly) will likely have some mainstream endeavors shown with GDC and E3 giving the core gamers something to ponder.

- Assuming they wait until August, it will have been 3 years since the last price cut (and no, the Elite drop was not an actual price cut no matter how some try to spin it).  With a redesign to reduce production cost and the time that has passed, by all intents and purposes there could be a significant price cut.  But I doubt there will.  I'd imagine it will be $50 across the board for all stand alone devices ($99 Kinect, $149 4g 360, $249 250 g 360).  It is very reasonable to think that they can afford this and maintain decent profitability at least.

- What could potentially be the REAL killer, though, is if they maneuver a great Kinect bundle price out of this.  Currently the Kinect bundle is priced at $299 while, if bought separately it would cost $348.  If they took the same approach after the other price cuts (separate would be $248), the Kinect bundle would be priced at $199.  Personally, I don't see anything that MS could that would be more potent than THAT.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!  I crack up because I THOUGHT EXACTLY THE SAME THING but wasn't going to say anything until I saw this.  Tooooo funny.

Done with a week to spare. Outstanding result. Didn't end up being anything like as close as I'd thought.

SO, what's the next sales milestone that we can create an artificial deadline for and see if it can come down to the wire? Wii to 100 Million by...when?

Well, we do both have T'Challa as an avatar.

Yeah they are... It's pretty bad. Although we did beat Wednesday with a Pilkington screamer! Dover should be pretty easy on Saturday too