I hope it's a jelly bean hat.

 No, you can't count on the gap staying the same, hence a 4 month average to "smooth out" the differences.  I only used those 4 months because the PS3 was actually outselling the 360 and there were a couple of major events in there.  If I had more data, obviously I'd use it.  I assumed a 200K/month difference or 50K/week on average, based on the last 4 months becasue that is all the really hard evidence we currently have.  That data is apparently a tad optimistic this week as it looks like the final numbers, on a worldwide basis, will be around 35K or so -- or 140K for a 4 week month... 

i never understood the sales with the 360. how do they count in the RRoD systems? they dont count warranty units as part of that 17-18 million do they?

No. MS shipped numbers would be sold to retail only and VGC's sold numbers are sold to consumer.   A replaced console cannot be counted as a sale because the transaction doesn't take place at either point of sale.

so is that why they are haveing "production issues"? they have half there consoles going to replacements and the other half are being sold. but witd the slow down its jaking everything up?

Production issues stem from a big manufacturing transfer from Wistron to Asustek. This phase out at Winstron and phase in at Asustek hasn't allowed for the steady flow of consoles MS wanted yet.

You have to think of it this way. If price were not an issue, which console would you choose? Because that's where it's going to be a year from now.

 You have to think of it this way.   Price has never been an issue.   DC was cheaper than PS2.  GC was cheaper than PS2.   PS2 is cheaper than Wii.    Notice the pattern here?   The cheapest system wasn't guaranteed to be any more successful than the more expensive system.

The ps3's lead wont be enough to gain 3rd party exclusives like last gen. Its either going to be ps360 or wii or both.

Continually people overestimate what impact PS3 software will have on long term sales. MGS4 may create some boost, but as the poster child of the PS3 since E32005 certainly a great deal of people purchased the PS3 already that will be purchasing MGS4.

Every month that goes by diminishes the impact that GT5 and FFXIII have on PS3 sales. More and more of the people that have to have a PS3 for GT5 and/or FFXIII will already have a PS3 when they arrive. How many of the GT5:Prologue purchasers will simply be treating GT5 as an upgrade? Meaning they wont purchase a new PS3 to play the finished version. Would Halo 3 had as much of an impact on hardware sales had it been released with 20 million XBOX 360 already sold to consumers? Sure the software sales would still have been great, but the hardware impact diminished. By the time GT5 and FFXIII hit the streets the PS3 will be approaching 20 million consoles sold. The impact will certainly be diminished (Especially GT5).