Both Sony and Microsoft are up YoY so far. Add a price cut in September-November time frame just for Chrstmas and bang peak year confirmed.

I don't know exactly who you are quoting, but I find that to be a bit too optimistic (especially about the 360).

Only time will tell if it's true.  We shall see.

It's from general MS PR. and if you look at the figures it's not optimistic at all, it's likely, they're already around 13.5M the FY just gone, all they need is another 1.5M plus to beat Sony and their claim will be true. a $199 360 bundled with Kinect will do that.

The only figures you should doubt is Nintendo's 13 mill, given they can't forecast for toffee (18M got knocked down to 17.5M, next Q knocked down to 16M, next Q knocked down to 15M)

Why the heck should Microsoft or Sony jumpstart a new gen when they keep selling more consoles every year?

it doesn't make any sense from an economic point of view..

In every industry, you introduce a new model when the sales of the old one start lagging.

That isn't the case for HD consoles, even when you speak of software..

Just thinking... maybe the reason why Xbox 360 and PS3 keep selling so well it`s because, for their audience, there are only 2 consoles and no leader.
In the PS2 generation, they were all going for the same market - essencially - and there was one clear winner from the start that ate the other one`s market.
This generation that isn`t happening: the market leader pratically has no place in the core market and the Xbox brand gained recognition as the playstation lost part of it`s recognition.

I think it`s safe to assume the same happened in the PS1 generation.

Of course, that doesn`t take away the fact that not only redesigns were introduced this time for PS3 and Xbox 360, but they upgraded their controller input (kinect and Move) giving way for the casual market.
There`s also something that didn`t happen this time around: the change in price was less drastic. Why? Probably because, in the context of a sales tie, they didn`t need to appeal to costumers as Xbox and GC did when they were fighting against a clear leader.
Having prices higher by this time in the lifetime they can keep the perception of value in their consoles and they can still impact the market with a price drop.

Don`t know if this makes much sense, but it did a few minutes ago! :D

Pachter claimed the Wii U was too late. Which is logical, as he used to say we would see a Wii HD in a couple of years, so now that it didn't pan out it is better for him to say that Nintendo is wrong in its timing than to recognise that his perdiction was wrong.

And the Wii sales didn't pick up randomly, it got a price cut.

Personally I do not see the Wii U as swaying most that already have a PS3 or 360 but depending on the price difference,  graphical difference of the final hardware, whether the addition of the screen makes a big difference to multiplatform games and whether Nintendo releases any game that captures the public's imagination like wii Sport and Wii Fit dit, it might end up being more enticing to those who are currently buying PS3's and 360's.