No, it doesn't suck remotely for either now, whatever happens.

MS NEEDED to be 2nd place for the first 4 years, to gain standard multiplat development.

What, you think when PS3 gains 2nd place the xbox and all the multiplat games will crumble? No, nothing will change except a lot of PS3 fans gloating, and getting pissed off when Greenberg continues to claim 360 is 2nd place in reference to NPD

That may be so, but Microsoft stated that they will be in the race as long as Sony is with the 360. They are in no rush to switch systems. They want to keep Sony behind them the entire duration. It's going to fail.

This a complete misrepresentation of the US market as kinect has for all purposes become the most popular add on and appears to have taken control of the casual video game market.

Seece remarks pretty much sum it up and the sales facts speak far louder than your words.  You may not like it but you can expect kinect to lead sales in the holiday 2011 sales just like they did in 2010 holiday.

Previous alternations between Sony and MS suggest instead that next Xmas sales leader will be PS Move.

Kinect is defintely not dead in the US.  A game that hardcore players LOVE would defintley sell more kinect units, which would be nice, but I don't believe it even needs that.  It would still be huge this coming christmas if they didn't come out with anymore games at all this year.  Wii2 coming and having the same functionality this christmas would be the only thing I could see slowing it down.

I don't think that is going to happen alby, especially here in the US where kinect sales continue to outpace move by atleast a 6:1 margin.

Not in USA, but worldwide. Alternation between MS and Sony on leadership, er, I meant 2nd place happens WW, MS holds leadership, well 2nd place lifetime and weekly leadership, in USA firmly in its hands and Sony won't ever grab it this gen, while OTOH Wii has many chances to hold lifetime leadership there, but most probably won't ever get weekly US leadership again during the fist 3 quarters and a half (but most probably it will still get it for Xmas). So, jokes apart, Move could outsell Kinect WW if Sony decided to seriously advertise it, as about games it's not in a worse position than Kinect or Balance Board, instead it offers its own specific games, like Kinect and BB, plus support for many existing and future hardcore games: Sony made the right choice designing a WiiMote Plus clone with camera added that can support hardcore games a lot better than competitors, even better than WM Plus, the previous leader in precision, and so not pissing out core and hardcore gamers, as Move reduces the risk of existing franchises being watered down to support it. But Sony, that except for Kevin Butler and very few other brilliant ideas, normally sucks hard at marketing, isn't even remotely exploiting all the advantages Move could have. A company so big and with so many different good ideas that it partially wastes not advertising them enough leaves me speechless. I don't like excessive and pestering advertising, it normally makes me NOT buy a product, but lack of advertising is stupid too, as the public must know a product exists and what are its strong points to buy it.

Finally, a thing I found ironic: while Kinect is falling here in EU, except UK where it still does well, yesterday at a store I saw for the first time a little girl using it and liking it too, she jumped laughing and waving her arms and like a crazy ape, while since launch until yesterday I saw only male teens trying it in the demo areas (last Xmas I saw girls and women knowing what Kinect is, but more interested in Wii and BB anyway).

microsofts in trouble of losing second i dont think they will this year but thats about it, lots of games and content on there. I think they will have a few aces up their sleeve for the hardcore come e3 now thats kinects bringing in more core gamers

No that's just the wishful thinking of fans, for a corporation the best thing to do is maximize profits, whichever way you spin it, they are doing it. Of course the MS fans would want 360 to be ahead of PS3, whereas the PS3 fans would just love the day when it takes over, so they can gloat over internet forums. Seece is most likely bang on with it, having been the market leader in the HD consoles department has ensures that 360 gets the 3rd party support both this gen and the next, it was no case of the original Xbox, which barely sold anything and majority of the 3rd party, served the PS2 instead, but now quite alot of the franchises - Resident Evil, MGS etc are also moving onto 360. MS did market penetration, by both launching early and at a great loss in order to gain market share from the giant that was Sony.

Has it ever happened before where the number 1 console in the USA wasn't the number one console worldwide (I know the Wii is still the big gun but there's the possibility.....).  Because, there seems to be the possibility that the number 1 console in the U.S. could be the number 3 console when it's all said and done.

I'm still picking 360 over PS3 when all is said and done because I just like the 360 more.