Ajax, I see your point and agree somewhat. However it is striking to me that so much thought goes into those two consoles when it seems obvious that large parts of the customer base seem to care for neither right now and seem happier with other devices. Neither console is currently a hit worldwide (the 360 can be considered a hit in America) and enlessly debating which one sells 5,000 units more than othe other in any given week is like debating who's the best foortball team in Greenland.

 Well considering the PS3 is 50 weeks younger then the 360 and is only 6,980,000 behind which is over 50% it will overtake the 360 eventually. There is no denying that if things keep going as it is Fall 2008 Sony will be in 2nd place. 

The reason people compare the PS3 and 360 is because the two are similar. They are all about horsepower while the wii is about handling. I'll make it simpler for you. In football you have various positions around the pitch, comparing the Wii and the 360 is like comparing a Striker to a defender if your american you probably won't get that. I'll make it easier for you, it's like comparing a quarter-back with a defensive back.

I'm not American, so don't worry, I got the analogy

 Sure, I understand what you're saying, it's hard to compare a media center with a fun machine. But my point was - why are 90% of Sales discussions at the moment about whether the PS3 'beat' the 360 by 5,000 units this week or whether the 360 'beat' the PS3 by 2,000 units next week when in the meantime out there in the real world most people seem to care for neither device and kill each other in trying to find the last copy of "Dr. Kawashima'?

So the PS3 is going to start outselling the 360 by 150,000 units per week, starting tomorrow?

I would be shocked if the PS3 averaged 150,000 units per week from now until Fall 08, much less 150,000 units more than the 360. Completely unrealistic. 

Who exactly has said the 360's sales will collapse? I would say though that the odds of a 360 sales collapse are better than the odds of the 360 "outselling the Wii and PS3 together" but they are both very negligible.

I think you may be confusing the main issue which is whether the 360's sales increase somewhat next year or stay about the same. Neither really means much in the big picture (eg, the 360 will be outsold by the Wii 2:1 instead of 2.4:1) so there isn't much point being bitter about it.

There's good arguments for both the somewhat increase and stagnant sides. One of the main points for the stagnant sales side is that the 360 has not yet shown any signs of breaking out of its small hardcore gamer demographic. Price drops could help but the main problem is that it will always be overshadowed by the Wii in both price and non-hardcore gamer perception. Meanwhile on the other end Sony is bleeding itself white to match the 360 in price. Essentially in relative price terms the 360 will likely not make up much ground against the Wii and will continue lose ground to the PS3.

The point about games isn't that the 360 won't continue seeing great games, or that 2007 was the best year ever for the 360. The point is that like in price even an improvement in games would still be losing ground to the Wii and PS3. 2007 while a great year in 1st party terms was an abysmal year for the Wii in terms of 3rd party software. 2008 will also be a great year for 1st party games and 3rd party games will see a major improvement (no stickball, I'm not saying Wii 3rd party support will be better than 360 3rd party support). The PS3 has pretty much gotten 2 types of games in 2007, delayed or rushed. As devs get a better handle on the PS3's complicated architecture next years games will also see a marked improvement. Even should 2008 be better for the 360 than 2007 it will be extremely difficult to get more than small improvement in overall quality. So relatively the 360 will fall behind.

Generally after 2 years a systems sales are pretty much fixed. This has already been seen with the 360 where despite 2007 blowing 2006 away in 360 game quality, despite the 360's game library simply putting the PS3's to shame and challenging Nintendo's lineup, despite winning the hearts and minds of the most vocal gamers, despite having the best advantage it will likely see in price vs its main competitor, despite major efforts by MS to expand in Japan and Europe, despite the biggest entertainment launch in history, despite the Wii being seriously underproduced, despite basically having more going its way than maybe any console in history, the 360 only saw a small increase in sales from 2006 which was itself just a small increase from the sales rate of the Xbox.

So what the stagnant argument boils down to is that bereft of most of those advantages from 2007, how can the 360 be expected to sell anything but a little better next year? Again, no sales won't collapse. Also again, there are good arguments, like the ones you made, for why the 360 could get a boost next year. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

As for when the PS3 overtakes the 360, well it's not likely to happen next year that's for sure.  The PS3 would need a huge jump in sales next year while the 360 stagnates for that to occurr.  Not impossible just not very likely.  Should the PS3 have any chance of overtaking the 360 we'll see next year.  If by 2009 the PS3 is 6-9 million units behind it is very unlikely since the PS3's sales will reach the fixed point.  However, if the PS3 can make up a decent amount of ground on the 360 so it is say only 3 or 4 million units behind then it becomes plausible by the end of 2009.  If the PS3 makes up even more ground than that, which I think is extremely unlikely, then an early 2009 switch becomes possible.

In multiple ways Sony made 2007 very easy for MS and MS didnt have to be very aggressive to compete. This will make 2008 easier for MS. What do I mean.

The very poor performance of the PS3 through October in all regions allowed MS to keep the 360 at launch price through July and then only drop the price between $20 and $50 between the 3 SKU's. Nobody saw this coming prior to PS3 launch. People were claiming the PS3 would overtake the 360 in months not years back then. PS3 performance meant that MS didnt need to drop prices agressivly. They can make an aggressive price drop in 2008. It is unlikely that you will see Sony do yet another $100 price drop. I believe it is pretty likely that MS will drop the 3 SKU's aggressively and we will see an XBOX 360 offered for $199.

As for 2007 and the 360 the 360 lagged until E3 when MS finally put together and announced a plan to deal with the RROD. Once they announced the 3 year warrantly and new more reliable versions of the hardware started releasing consumers were not worried about picking up a 360. The first 6-7 months of the year had some people hold back because of RROD. You also had people holding off because of price even now. Sony will still feel that in 2008. After the Holidays the $399/$499 price points will still have a negative effect.

As for software all this great software will be available for consumers even in 2008. It isnt like MS will pull the titles off the market. MS also does have some excellent titles coming in 2008 (Starting at CES we will see more of what the 360 will offer in 2008) and the 3rd parties will support the 360 more now than ever. Sony's big titles wont show until 2nd half of 2008 and likely will have a couple delayed until 2009.

I actually prefer the ps3 then the 360 but I think that the 360 is in better position.
Why? Because they have very strong first party games much better then Sony. So in a situation where almost every 3rd party games end up in both platforms I think that the 360 have a major advantage over the ps3. Looking at the sell numbers I even think that maybe the 360 will get more exclusive game for the US market.

The 360 is just a fad.

It's only outselling the original xbox by a few mil in the same amount of time, and it still has a long ways to go to catch up with the original xbox in total sales. I haven't seen too many predict this, but personally I am not convinced it will long-term meet the original xbox numbers. It had a head start compared to the xbox, but right now it has more competition than the xbox did.

We probably will not know for certain for 2-3 years... It may colapse in 2008, but far more likely not to be clear until 2009 if it does colapse.

I think the market place is better with more than one console, each with some incredible exclusives. The 360 has a decent chance of tieing overall for second place with the PS3 and possibly having a strong second place because of it's library. That said, I don't think either Sony or Microsoft would really be satisfied with second place if it means less than 40% of the market...

Actually, i'm a Nintendo fan, and i still believe that the PS3 will outsell the 360 in 2008 by a lot. The 360 had some amazing games, the PS3 with a higher price and much less great games matched its sales and it's now outselling it.

If prices stay the same i expect the PS3 to heavily outsell the 360 in 2008, and overtake it's sales at Early 2009.