That is exactly why third party games are so important ...

Compare and contrast the first and second party line ups from Sony and Microsoft and you'll see that these two companies are developing very similar games and (generally) target the exact same demographic; if you only have first and second party titles to choose from it is very difficult to tell these platforms apart.

It is the third party exclusive games that are distinct (either due to their quality or nature of the game) which truely convince people to buy a system. Because both systems are so similar they will have a great deal of difficulty breaking away (in terms of sales) from eachother; which means that it will be difficult to aquire exclusive games.

sorry to inteript this thread...is there a reason i can't make a new thread? I keep hitting the button and nothing happens.

why is your prediction for 360 9 million? its already past that mark

Andrew, actually if i am not mistaken, the 360 is at 1 million sales for this year

I think these are solid predictions, SSJ. I personally think the Wii will sell considerably more than that (15 million+), and while I do think the 360/PS3 numbers might be a TAD high, they're close enough to my own predictions that I wouldn't argue. In general, I'd say these are reasonable predictions that don't scream "(PS3/360/Wii) fanboy!"

If I had to make any criticism, it would be this: the Wii has already sold 5 million consoles in 5 months this year. The odds that it won't sell over 7 million more in the last 7 months of the year that includes Christmas seem slim. While I think it's unlikely (if for no other reason than supply issues), we could quite literally see 7 million Wiis sold in November/December alone. Put differently -- you expect the 360, which has sold 2 million consoles this year, to sell as many consoles over the next 7 months as the Wii, which has sold 5 million consoles. Not impossible by any means, SSJ, it just seems unlikely.

 Hehe, it may be lag, Super. Try only hitting it once, then if it doesn't work, come back in an hour or so. This site is growing quite fast, and it is suffering from bandwidth issues pretty frequently right now (in my experience, at least).

 There will be almost no 3rd party exclusives between those two platforms (At leat big ones) in the future. So how is 3rd party important?

It's 1st and 2nd party that are most important. Tell me is MS making a game like Uncharted or Heavenly Sword or Ratchet or Lair right now? no.

1st and 2nd Party is going to be the difference between those two consoles. 

Heavenly Sword and Lair are both third party 3rd Party... They are being PUBLISHED by SONY, and developed by a 3rd party developer. That boyo, is a 3rd party exclusive

 Those are 2nd party games.

So how long will it take for BOTH of these titles to come to the 360?

Unless Sony "own" the IP, no reason why it couldn't happen. At worst a sequel could if the contract excludes this.