Well ,if MS themselves claim a 5 million worlwide lead then I think we can put to a rest the 6.35 figure.

With a 5 million lead and the PS3 outselling it by 50K regularly its 100 weeks until it passes it.Thats 200k montly and 25 months until it passes the 360.But its clear the maths dont go like that.The holiday sales are like at least 33% of all the year sales and there it could eat a lot of terrain.Lets not forget about games as MGSIV ,FFXIII,White Knight Story ,Little Big Planet and even Socom Confrontation those will spoil the sales.

In any case Sony should do something to make things faster.MS has significantly cut the 360 price in Europe and is dead in Japan.Providing that the US sales are now nearly equal now that PS3 is banking in Blu Ray winning the format war Sony must absolutely destroy MS in those other markets to shorten the gap fast enough.To catch up fast PS3 needs absolutely the Japan market and selling there at least 35K units weekly.Its clear something is happening there.The console is selling even worse that it did last year at the higher price point and with arguable a lot more games released of japanese liking(Disgaea 3,DMC4,Yakuza3,Valkyrie of Battlefield,Everybodys Golf,Dynasty Warriors,PES2008,GT5P).But the console had good sales from november to debut february.Precisely while there was 60Gb and 20Gb around.

For me what Sony must do is:

1)Release the 80Gb in Japan and Europe.That will improve the sales big time.I know lots of people that are holding back only because they think or hope a BC version will be launched.
2)Drop the price in US and Europe.
3)If in Japan the sales continue to be low even with the 80gb out then they should make faster the transition to the PS-Three or PS3-Lite.A sales surge is to be expected if they do that ,as the bulkiness and great weight of the current pS3 is something the japanese definitively dont like at all.


As for Ms ,there isnt too much they can do but they can still drop the price in US and they should eliminate the Live fees.But MS as themselves said is in here because the online gaming market and the prospects of benefit it they foretold for it ...so they wont eliminate those fees ever its their market approach and wouldnt see any point keeping in the market if it wasnt for this.

 I would, as a matter of fact, I know people that bought 60gb PS3s just to play Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Ofcourse they'd want to play other games on the console but NG pushed them over the edge to either getting a Xbox or PS3. Do not underestimate hardcore followers of a franchise, there might not be alot of them, but they are pretty much whores and would do anything to get their hands on the games they want.

One more thing ,dont know with all the changing numbers but when the PS3 was launched was definitely over 5 million ,more like 6.7 or so.

I love posts that say look the PS3 has all these great games that will propel it past the 360 then they list the following:

GT5
MGS4
FF13
Resistance 2
Killzone 2
LBP
Motorstorm 2
Tekken 6
etc.

Then someone says that the 360 has
Gears 2
Alan Wake
Banjo 3
Ninja Gaiden 2
Fable 2
Too Human
Halo Wars

Then that is just laughed off that all the PS3 titles are system sellers and none of the 360 games are system sellers.

Fact of the matter few of any of those games (for either system) are system sellers. The real sellers as the consoles move into the position they are now is just a growing library of quality titles.

To add on I really think that the 360 lineup the remainder of 2008 is being overlooked. Particularly when we dont know it all yet. The remainder of 2008 has at least the following:

Gears 2
Ninja Gaiden 2
Fable 2
Too Human
Halo Wars
Banjo 3

And we are hearing that at the MS event next week we will see 2 other never before seen titles that will arrive this year.

That looks like a pretty diverse quality lineup to me.

Both have strong lineups, but the general view of industry analysts seems to be that PS3 has higher number of potential system sellers vs 360.  I'm not saying it does or it doesn't, but that's clearly the main thrust of the argument I've seen in a fair number of 2008 previews.

^The point is PS3 didn't have one single system seller until GTAIV came out, and look at what it's done. Just imagine what it'll do in a year it has (besides GTAIV driving more hardware sales for it) two or three MAJOR EXCLUSIVE sellers.

Actually quite a few titles released in 2007 were touted to be big exclusives before actually being released, so who says most of the titles on those lists won't end up the same way? Also 2 or 3 major releases won't just magically sell millions of consoles. They give a console a temporarely bump, but then sales return to their normal level again. Also I wouldn't call it a good sign when it takes 1 and a half year to have your first system seller released, Sony really should be releasing those kind of titles on a more regular basis.

^So you think Halo 3 and Gears of War didn't sell 360s months after they were out? WRONG. They are still selling 360's NOW. Just take 360's sales for a single month (take NA as example) then look at the attach ratio of Halo 3 on 360s sold. The game had pretty damn long legs.

@koffieboon

I was referring to MAJOR hardware sellers, and I was making extra emphasis on exclusives this year. You make it sound like MS is delivering big exclusives on a regular basis? or maybe Nintendo is? The fact is there have been great sellers, COD4, Assasin's Creed, Devil May Cry 4, and some others with less impact but good sales nonetheless.