As long as software sales are healthy on the 360 (which they are), I can't see that it's "over" for the 360.  They have over 18 million consoles sold and will likely have an installed base of 25-35 million by the end of the year.  Hard to image that as "failure" considering they haven't even come out with a re-engineered unit yet.

I love how now that xbox is losing in sells now its not about competition but a year ago it all was when ps3 was not selling...... funny..

Lower the price and buy Square Enix... thats my top and only 2 for them to get sales....

Microsoft really do need to get some more casual games out that will appeal to non-hardcore gamers. There are 2 main reasons why i sold my x-box 360,

1= The Games-Controller
2=Most of there games get released on my pc which is more than capable of playing them.
Microsoft need to get more games games games, But i think they will never beat the ps3 because Sony has the most first party developers, and studios, more than nintendo and microsoft combined.

Here's the problem with these:

 1.  Sales are UP in their primar market versus last year for most weeks.   You have to seel a LOT more consoles to make up the drop in price, andMS is just starting to make gaming profitable.  I wouldn't expect them to slash prices just to sell more than PS3.  The financial guys at MS aren't dumb - if they felt they would make huge sales ground up they'd have done it by now.  Agreed on peripherals, though I'd argue the same concept applies. 

 Peripherals for all consoles are overpriced but are where they make good profits.  Once they have you sold on the console, you just need to buy some of them, and they know it.  True for all brands.

2.  Exclusives are SO expensive and by the time they came to market, it's be 2011, so what's the point?

3.  I really doubt Live being free is changing people's minds.  It's less than a game a year, and the price has never been raised, and the vast majority of the people who pay for it continue to pay for it, which means they see it as a decent value. 

4.  They will never get rid of the noise, because it's reqa functio of making the drive run at the speed it does.  PS3, for example, is quieter because the drive runs so slowly.  I'd personally have my stuff load faster and turn up the volume, without a doubt. 

 5.  Why would I give up my HD-DVD drive?  It's awesome and it would make all the movies I bought for it a huge waste of money.  It would cost as more to replace all the movies than it would be to buy a new Blu-Ray player/PS3.  The people that invested in an add-on player knew that it wasn't going to last forever - you need a 360 to use it.  That's why it was cheap compared to others.  I still don't see the reason people are riled up about that whole deal.  Blu-Ray prices have gone up now.  Is that what people wanted?

This isn't a defense of the console at all.  It's just that there are no magic solutions to it.  If there were easy answers, they'd have been made already.  

You say this like I am some MS fan. Read most of my posts. I am pro Sony. I was never about winning (that's Nintendo's world), I was just making sure my PS3 was going to have games made for it. Now I know it will. So will my 360.

Everyone wins.

Why does everyone think PS3 will not broaden the 50k a week lead. Blu-ray and more exclusive games will boost their sales. Even now, they're the most expensive machine and have fewer games, and still they sell more.

I don't get Microsoft. This is their moment. They've got the lead, now they should just keep it. Why don't they just throw more money at it, and keep Sony's PS3 down?

All that effort, 6 years in a row, just to come in 3rd again.

microsoft is not beaten yet, multiplatform games tend to sell better on the 360, and there has been no huge releases in a while, GTAIV will boost the 360 again.

Not putting out faulty hardware would be a start.

They cant drop the price

Look at the price drop in Europe, it went up for 2 weeks then it went back down.