Wii will be down but not close to this year's sales as $50 pricecut incoming

PS3 will be up cause of the real PS3 SLIM release and the $100 pricecut

360 will be slightly up cause of the $50 pricecut

Wii         17m

PS3        18m

360        13m

I would say:

Wii: 17M because by all accounts it ought to have a good year.

Xbox 360: 15.5M because it ought to match the late 2010 performance with a price cut and it should be able to beat the early year performance with Kinect YOY.

PS3: 13M I don't think Sony will be able to increase the sales of the PS3 every year and I doubt that they will cut the price by more than $50 which ought to keep sales steady but not significantly boost them overall.

You know, I've read every comment here and ... for the life of me I just can't at all see why a reasonable person would feel the PS3 will outsell the K360 in 2011.  

- The PS3 has a potentially great lineup of games coming, but those announced games for the most part are ones that would appeal mostly to PS3 owners (sequels, sequels, sequels).  I don't see such a software lineup as being a reason for a noticeable boost this late in the gen.

- Any PS3 price cut can and will be matched or undercut by a K360 and Wii one.

- With Kinect, like it or not, the 360 has a ton of moment early this year that will not subside any time soon.  And we honestly don't know much about Kinect software that will come this year that could potentially make it more appealing to an even wider audience.

For the record, I'm not saying the 360 is going to blow it out of the water by any means, but to me it makes not rational or reasonable sense to see it being outsold by the PS3 in 2011.  I'd love to hear some rational and reasonable justifications for those predictions.

MS is definitely going to price cut 360 this year. There is no way they will allow Sony to price drop PS3 without responding with a price cut of their own.

I think MS is going to try to make 360 sales go completely mass market this year which will require price cuts to bring prices down to the $150ish levels for the base system. In fact, I bet MS drops the price on 360s before Sony drops prices on PS3. Sony can't afford to drop the PS3 prices as much as MS can afford to drop the 360 prices (360s cost less to manufacture than PS3s and I would bet that the gap between manufacturing cost and retail price is bigger with 360s than PS3s presently).

I am going to getting at you, but sorry. The PS3 outsold the 360 in 2010 with the 360 having Halo, KINECT, Slim. Although I don't personally feel the PS3 will outsel the 360 in 2011, it's not hard to imAGINE EITHER since the PS3 has done it the last 2 years.

I don't think that PS3 will outsell 360 unless there is a pricecut either, even a minimal one, 360 was getting slaughtered prior to the release of Slim and even a month after slim prior to the release of Kinect, it's a miracle that the gap in 2010 was so small, 360 has made up alot of ground since the release of Slim and Kinect, it's just a question of whether this momentum will carry on into the early months of 2011 and whether 360 will experience same beastly holidays.

Hmm, if they burden the loss onto PSP2, they'll risk effectively losing out the first year to 3DS, in similar fashion that they lost out to 360 on launch, the entry price was just ludicrious, and we'll be in the same pickle all over again lol. I think that the software will see great sales most exclusives breaching the 3M gap so the software numbers should be pleasing but I doubt many of those will move large number of hardware, possibly just little boosts, it'll be a tough year in my opinion, either face the red or be edged out of the console market.

How come no pricecut on 360? I think it's possible to see one, after all the last one was in 2008, 3 years without a price cut? That's insane, I am sure that MS will cut the price if either of the competition will too, if no one has the balls to make the first cut, I doubt anyone will cut at all next year, it's all or nothing lol.

This time last year a lot of people assumed that Mario Galaxy 2 would be Nintendo's big release for christmas 2010, but it actually released in the summer with the christmas software not announced until E3.  I think the same thing might happan this year - I expect Nintendo's holiday line up to consist of games that we won't hear of until E3 and for Zelda to release around May/June.

It's so difficult to tell what may happen because there are just too many variables.. 

Momentum swings, price drops, unannounced exclusives, redesigns, unannounced accessories, manufacturer strategy etc..

On the Microsoft side of things.. They have the newest value offering, i.e. They just released a redesigned console, a new price for each SKU and Kinect (They basically pulled all of their aces out of their hat). They are the LEAST likely to move on price. However they currently have the most momentum in the market with Kinect resonating very well over the holiday period. 

To accurately portray the sales pattern for the 360 in 2011, one would have to predict how well Kinect will sell over the long term.. Will it fade more quickly than expected (brighter candles burn quicker etc) or will it continue to sell at a very high pace. You'd have to look at the demographics of the users buying it, the percentage of people who already owned a 360 prior to buying one and the games that will drive demand in the coming year. 

How about the core gamer? Microsoft seem to have a fairly thin release calendar (by 360 standards) this year in terms of exclusive content. Will late adopters switch to another platform if momentum changes due to a steady supply of exclusive content? Will the XBOX LIVE community be able to hold these guys to the 360 to play with their friends?

*****

Now onto the PS3.. If Sony don't drop the price on the PS3 this year, it'll have gone 2 years without a drop in price and you would expect that sales would suffer for that reason. However, it's also clear that Sony have less room to move than the Microsoft in terms of pricing due to hardware costs and also the potential launch of new portable hardware this year in the form of the PSP2. If Microsoft don't move on price, should Sony? Instead Sony could very well bundle the PS Move in with the hardware to add value to the box. It's a possibility that neither HD console will get a price drop this year.

On the other hand, marketing a product includes pricing it to hit sales targets. Sony's sales targets for this year see the PS3 having it's best year if I'm not mistaken. So if sales are dropping below an acceptable level and Sony want to stall the drop, a price drop is the way they will go. I don't think Microsoft will follow them if they drop the price. 

To predict a price drop for the PS3 one must look at the momentum of the system.. It seems to be doing OK worldwide and is actually on track to repeat the success it had last year (although it's very early days), I suspect the launches of exclusive titles in the coming months will help the PS3 maintain its current momentum but that momentum doesn't look like it's going to increase. If those titles can't arrest a fall in momentum, and if the PlayStation Move can't pick up in sales in the coming months with titles like Sorcery coming, Sony may have to consider revising the price of the system.

*****

Now finally we have Nintendo.. This is the hardest to read.. On face value the Wii is looking to continue its downward trajectory, with falling YoY sales. However what do we know about the Wii? We know it hasn't seen a price cut since late 2009, a similar time frame to the PS3, we know that the system is trending lower than last year, we know that it's still out-pacing the PS2, and we know that coming into 2011 Nintendo's internal development muscle is focused on the launch of the Nintendo 3DS. However it's what we don't know that's really interesting and essential in how one might predict 2011 will play out.

Mario Sports Mix, The Last Story, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Kirby's Epic Yarn (EU) are really all we know to be coming to Wii from Nintendo that have the potential to drive hardware in any sort of way and honestly, all of them put together won't drive it very far. Nintendo being the secretive bunch they are only leave us with clues and hints as to what they have in store and so you have to predict that here and now if you want to try to predict how the Wii might sell. Will Pikmin 3 finally make it out this year? Is Wii Relax going to finally show up? Will that new IP Miyamoto was talking about show up this year and will it be a Wii title?

It's my opinion that Nintendo delayed the Wii Vitality Sensor until the Kinect hype dies down, they know that with too many new things and up against a $500 million marketing campaign, something is going to be lost in the shuffle.. However how big an impact could it make, is the 'stress' market the next goldmine? Or will it be another failure like Wii Music? Nintendo have the ability to move on price but they will be stubborn (and they should be, they're still out-pacing the PS2) and will have to see quite a drop in momentum before they consider it. The launch of the 3DS could very well absorb part of a Wii price drop however with Nintendo certainly making a tidy profit on hardware at launch. On the other hand, it's also possible for Nintendo to launch the Vitality Sensor earlier in the year than expected and create a new market for relieving stress through gaming thereby boosting momentum and driving sales UP YoY. We simply don't know Nintendo's plans.

So even though I haven't made any predictions, I hope the community can appreciate the level of detail needed to be able to say that you've made an educated guess. My short paragraphs don't even scratch the surface.. I'll be back in the next couple of days though to try to make a prediction.. I hope this post can give a few people a new perspective on a few things though, particularly the huge price drops everybody is forecasting. 

PS3 will be a distant 3rd in Americas, 360 will be all but invisible in Japan. In both cases 1st and 2nd position will be close. Americas being the bigger market will mean PS3 well behind when adding together these 2 markets. Wii will be ahead because it will be the only console performing strongly in both markets. Bringing in the EMEAA regions I think Wii will have it over PS3 and 360 will be a close 3rd, with UK supporting 360 in a big way.

Putting it all together makes Wii still the #1 console for 2011 (will probably be in 2nd place going in to the holidays) and 360 in 2nd because the massive gap between it and PS3 in Americas won't be overcome by the combined EMEAA Japan difference.

Even with all 3 systems getting a price cut (Sony will cut PS3 price by exactly the same amount as MS cuts its 250Gig sku) the order should remain the same. Price cuts can bring peak years to both 360 and PS3. A price cut could see Wii sell along 2009 lines, or at least hold steady and sell similar to 2010.