@ HappySquirrel

Don't you think this will change to the advantage of the PS3?

My reasons:
- Fewer XBox gamers will be upgrading as the XBox has already been unsupported for over 2 years already and the best selling XBox games already saw sequels on the 360.
- Blu-Ray becoming a more important distinguishing factor to the advantage of the PS3. (not only with regard to movies)
- MGS4 and Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3, there's nothing similarly high profile expected for the 360 apart from the PS3/360 multi-platform title GTA IV. For FPS fans I think Killzone 2 and Resistance 2 (will IMO demonstrate the Cell advantage from a technical perspective) will be of importance.
- I think Home will be more popular than most people here anticipate, also an important distinguishing factor.

I think folks are basing the patterns off a month or two, including holiday sales.

The PS3 is doing good in Japan, ok in NA and a wii bit better in Others. For the record, the 360 sales are stagnant - with MS having to pay nothing to compete against the PS3. Seriously, think about what it took for Sony to get into this spot where they are FINALLY outpacing the 360. Mind you, MS had that stinkin' $50 price cut in the entire two years it has been out.

Folks talking about the millions that the PS3 will narrow the gap are simply foolish. Yeah, the PS3 is a good machine, and the main thing it has going for it is - Blu Ray. With the *war* nearing a close, folks are gonna buy a PS3 for the Blu Ray playing aspect. The games won't outsell the 360 in the near future.

I think the PS3 will shave the lead by a million, maybe a million and a half. But to think the PS3 is gonna overtake - or even come close to the 360 in total sales is nutz.

kirby007 said: anyways if you know at the graph, the weekly numbers that the ps3 outsells the xbox360 is getting smaller edit : my graph is gone missing edit2 : for those of you that are interested http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii®1=All&cons2=PS3®2=All&cons3=X360®3=All&start=39124&end=39488

Actually the gap has been pretty close to steady except last week there was a big boost in 360 NA and big drop in PS3 JAP. We'll see what happens in coming weeks. Do you know why it might have happened?

It depends on price and if games deliver so if that happens i would say as high as 5.5 million if people won't care about dlc on gta, but it fails to deliver maybe a 3 mil more. Without pricecut and if some games will be delayed again. (Killzone2 and FF13) which seem to be important, killzone not as much though.

I think the PS3 will close the gap by somewhere around half -- either somewhat more or somewhat less depending on how much 360 price cuts boost sales.

By alot once MGS4 comes out.

MikeB said: @ HappySquirrel The XBox 360's popularity in North America Don't you think this will change to the advantage of the PS3? My reasons: - Fewer XBox gamers will be upgrading as the XBox has already been unsupported for over 2 years already and the best selling XBox games already saw sequels on the 360. - Blu-Ray becoming a more important distinguishing factor to the advantage of the PS3. (not only with regard to movies) - MGS4 and Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3, there's nothing similarly high profile expected for the 360 apart from the PS3/360 multi-platform title GTA IV. For FPS fans I think Killzone 2 and Resistance 2 (will IMO demonstrate the Cell advantage from a technical perspective) will be of importance. - I think Home will be more popular than most people here anticipate, also an important distinguishing factor.

One of the most important factors in people choosing the consoles they do is what console their friends and family own. Whereas Blu-Ray playback has no impact on the (more than) 70% of households in Norh America who only own standard definition televisions (and the large portion of households where the gaming system is attached to their secondary, non-HD, television) the 6 Million user lead for the XBox 360 will have a massive impact on hardware sales.

Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gran Turismo 5 will be the worst selling games in their series because the Millions of PS2 owners who bought a PS2 for less than $200 and picked up these games because they were high profile (with no real love for the series) are not likely to buy a $300 or $400 PS3 to play them.

The Cell processor will never make a big impact on this generation because it has been over a year and the PS3 still struggles to perform as well as the XBox 360, and there has never been a generation where a system has gained sales due to being more powerful. Blu-Ray will also never make much of an impact because it requires an install to match the load times of the XBox 360's DVD drive, and there are few developers who can afford to produce 25GB of compressed game content.

I see +3M for the PS3 but at best. +2M seems more safe. 

 About NA sales,

 I think the importance of BR will increase over the time and will play in the favor of the PS3 (except if MS go BR too) because more and more people will begin to buy HD TV and try to upagrade their DVD player.

People buy the same console than their friend, it is true BUT the PS3 has a strong brandname and starts to have a decent userbase in NA (3-4M?). I mean , seriously, WHO doesn't know about the existence of the PS3 ???
Also note the media bashing about the PS3 has stopped.

The Xbox360 is cheaper but in the same time is a bit older. People that wanted to buy it could have done it before. I m sure a price drop(50 or 100$) will help a lot MS but I m sure a similar price drop would help even better the PS3 since her price is still very high. But this part (the price : the most important part) is very hard to predict since we dont know how MS/Sony will handle it.

I can see MS win the GTA4 battle but I think they will lose the end of the year (40gb at 300$) ...

^ Shouldn't your signature read "MGS4"? Also, judging by the YouTube link, "the beast is unleashed"

LOLLLLLLLL,

nono it is in MGS3, not in MGS4 (except if there are flashback about past episode ...)

and u are completely right for the "beast" ^^