I recommend a price cut in America before GTA4 (even though the PS3 is now almost tied with it in weekly sales), and that's it.

As long as MS tries to stay with in the 50 000 units sold (weekly) of the PS3 it will take years for them to catch up.

Allthough they need to recoup their total losses in the gaming division they don´t need to recoup it all this generation as long as they can stay second and continue to be profitable with the 360 they don´t need to do much more.

Pack it in and call it a day, because it's over for the 360. They should worry about building up their brand further and making it profitable. Don't even think about console wars. That is out of their hands.

As NJ5, price cut before GTA4, actually advertise GTA4 and not just talk about the supposedly huge campaign coming up. Oh and Bundle GTA4 with the 360 (as well as future games that come out, i.e Fable 2, Too Human, Ninja Gaiden).

I don't accuse OP of being a Sony fanboy here, but with all this talk about how sony is beating microsoft these days (as Ajax pointed out, it's a small beating), does that make the PS3 fanboys sleep better at night, that you don't feel stupid for your purchase because other people bought your console aswell?

Seriously, how does increases in sales DIRECTLY effect your enjoyment of the console (and I understand that developers want to make games for platforms that sell more to earn more money, but I'm pretty sure 18 million is still > 12 million).

 See, that's the thing; the 360 seems to have reached its sales peak, whereas the PS3 still has a lot to go it seems seeing how well its doing with not a single one of the highest anticipated titles out yet. Everyone assumes that the PS3 will never sell more than it does now, even analysts, but why? Its illogical to me tbh.

Out of their hands? ...

However, I agree that the HD console war is over. The PS3 and the 360 will never be far enough from each other to justify the existence of exclusive third party games (except when moneyhats are given of course). PS360 or Wii games will be the rule, the rest will be the exception.

Get out of the console buisness and go back to operating systems. Vista was a let down and since they introduced the xbox the quality of the OS's has gone down.

Actually, M$ supply shortages looks like it actually has some merit to it:

http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2008/04/console-post-of-week.html

Wistron is reported to have phased out of Xbox 360 production and has ended its six year cooperation with Microsoft, according to market sources.

With Microsoft dropping its selling price of the Xbox 360 console earlier this year, it tried to push the profit pressure onto its three OEMs, Wistron (who accounted for 40% of shipments), Flextronics (40%) and Celestica (20%), by asking them to lower their OEM prices.

Wistron decided to stop taking Xbox 360 orders at the end of the third quarter after trying to negotiate with Microsoft over a quarter long period.

Flextronics has taken over the majority of the Xbox 360 orders, increasing its OEM production to over 60% of total shipments, while Celestica still remains as a second OEM.

About point N 4

A friend of mine bought a new console last week for 250 eur - 20GB Premium with Forza 2 and Viva Pinata. Manufactured 20.11.2007 with BenQ DVD Drive and it is 2 times more cooler and 3 times more quiet then the old one with Samsung.

The only thing given now is:
- that the PS brand will be far far from the 70% market share at the end of this generation

- that the 360 is selling way better than the Xbox, growing YOY, and is on course (0.5bn profit every quarter) to recoup losses by 2010 (even though it has been explained time and time again this is sunk costs, so it hardly justifies Microsoft's business decisions)

- the 360 and the Wii have the best games now, maybe you guys have money growing on your trees, but keeping up with games on one system is already very demanding on your wallet and I know if I had a PS3 now, I would be very bored

- Microsoft Games Studios is shifting away from PC to 360 so theres no way they are goin to U-turn on this strategy by making the 360 defunct

- there is a lot of PSterone on this thread