I'd guess most 360 owners did not own an Xbox

 MS has maybe SOME relevance to Sony seeing as how most 3rd-party games are available on both platforms. And usually better made on the 360. Sony maybe should care about that.

 Consoles are not like cars, people buy consoles for good games. Of course Sony has brand loyalty, but that will not be enough to keep the masses coming back to them. Broken promises about the cell being so many x's more powerful than the 360 will continue to turn people away because they can get the same experience for less. Even if the ps3 does catch up the Playstation brand has taken major hit.

@passenger

How do you know ps3 sales will drop back to how it was below 100k?

@leo-j

They may not, and if they don't Microsoft will have to do something drastic, hence the word may in the title. I originally started this thread because of trends that I've noticed over the past 6 years in game hardware sales on this site. I could be dead wrong and eating my words, but slower selling system in the past have beaten leading systems during the holiday season and lost momentum after.

100+ million Playstation owners and 125 million PS2 owners bought their systems for:

Final Fantasy
Metal Gear Solid
Gran Turismo
Team ICO
Ratchet and Clank
Singtar
Jak and Daxster
Sly Cooper
Killzone
SOCOM
and on and on

which system has those games this gen?

Six years ago the Xbox launched. Six years and over 100 million console gamers had a choice between one system that had:

Halo
PGR
Forza
Fable
etc.

and went with the PS2 and its library of exclusive games. So those 100 million people who had the opportunity to buy Xboxes for its library of exclusive games didn't last gen but now out of the blue are going to completely change their gaming tastes?

@Pasenger

The problem though is that I can't get the same experience for cheaper. I have yet to see a 360 title that impresses me more than Uncharted, Ratchet, OR heavenly sword :/ 

With MS's latest killer exclusive Mass Effect, I played it, and was not technically impressed. I was not wow'ed in the least. Then I think about games like GT5 on the horizon running 1080p, 60 FPS, and supporting 16 cars online? The sad thing is, I would say Assassins creed is probably the best looking game I've seen on the 360, and thats multi-plat :( Keep in mind I have played Gears of War, Halo 3, Bioshock AND Mass Effect.

Broken promises are one thing, notoriously horrible hardware is another :( Getting your box fixed in European country's has been a major hastle from what I've heard and isn't so easily remedied. Microsoft will be fighting the uphilll battle in Europe/Japan, and to be honest I don't think thats a fight they're prepared for. They will do great in America though :P

So every Final Fantasy sold over 100 Million copies on the Playstation? Wow that's impressive, someone should tell Square Enix that though ... The fact that PS3 fans can simply not understand is the vast majority of PS2 owners didn't own a single one of those games; probably didn't rent or borrow them either.

The majority of PS2 owners will move up to a current generation console when the PS2's library isn't offering enough new content for them, a console offers some interesting content they desire, and the console is in their price range (most likely under $200). The PS3 will not fit the requrements until late 2009 (at the earliest) while the PS2 will likely stop being all that appealing to many/most of them well before that.

"The 360 is losing steam" is not a statement of opinion. It is a testable, objective statement and as such can be supported or undermined by existing evidence. The facts as we currently know them are that the 360 still accounts for a large percentage of software sales, and that it has managed to increase it's holiday sales this year over last (though those figures may be revised, for now we work with what we have). All of this before the 360 has received a substantial price cut (an average $33 drop across 3 models is not what I would consider substantial).  Those don't imply that the 360 is losing steam.

Similarly, there is a good deal of evidence that the PS3 is gaining steam - the price cut and new models have increased sales over the last several months, and it is exceeding weekly 360 sales in "other" territories (such was always the case in Japan).  However, the increased sales of the PS3 does not inherently translate to a slowdown in the 360.

Most people I know who bought Heavenly Sword were disappointed in the gameplay, although the visuals were really great.  If you feel that Bioshock, Halo 3, GOW, and Mass Effect aren't impressive games, then you should rejoice in the fact that you own a PS3.

Unfortunately, the sales numbers for those titles tend to suggest that a large number of gamers like the 360 titles that you mentioned.  I know I've spent many hours playing Halo 3 and GOW, and I was very impressed with the graphics and play.  Perhaps the 6 million people who bought Halo 3 are all stupid and don't know a unimpressive game when they see it.

 All valid points, although I would like to think that Microsoft has taken care of hardware problems. All those games you mentioned have impressed me greatly, but I guess thats why there's competition between the 2 platforms. 2008 will be an interesting year, as of right now both the 360 and PS3 are getting there tookuses handed to them by the Wii though.