@Benga Benga

remember in Japan before DW6 released.....the PS3 dipped really low due to the bundle coming out

remember PSP dipped really low before the FF7:CC bundle coming out

GTA 4 never had a bundle in NA

 i think its safe to say a good 20 or 30k people withheld...thats not EVERYBODY as you allude to. If EVERYBODY did sales would be at zero.

I also think you OVERESTIMATE how many people buy a console the week before a game to get  game next week, thus are putting too much credence into lesser sales the week before for no reason.....i know if i want MGS4 and dont have a PS3 id try to get the bundle or grab the game and the 40gb when the game comes out....

Also if ioi takes into account wal-mart sales then we also must factor in the week long special of receiving a $100 gift card with the purchase of a PS3....perhaps folks also withheld for that for this week. 

not that it'll happen.. but it'd be interesting to see the backlash if 360 outsells ps3 next week

 the great thing about online forums is the effort it takes to post things....we must type them out, usually proofread, and then hit submit....this is why useless "thinking out loud posts" should not be tolerated

Ok, let's recap. In my first post I set some targets, because I honestly don't have a clue about next weeks sales. But let me say that I was already dissapointed at VGChartz GTA4 booost, let alone the NPD numbers.
No matter how often everyone says it doesn't count because it's multiplatform, it's damage control and you know it. It was THE PS2 game and even multiplatform it should be about 50% bigger than MGS4.

I'm not saying no-one will wait for the bundles, but in all honestly after all the massive hype I didn't (and I hope no-one did) expect the 360 to outsell the PS3 the week before the biggest exclusive game on PS3 yet launches. I hope we can all agree on that.

That's why I wanted to know how much everyone expects the PS3 to sell during MGS week. I have even seen predictions of a million PS3's sold next week. If everyone posts their ideas, we can put next weeks result into perspective. 

I'm thinking Sony forced demand, by making available the only version of the system people didn't favor (they claimed this themselves when they claimed not to have gauged the demand on the 80gig.)

This method of backloging is artificial, it's also been very streamingly advertized that MGS4 will have the 80gig for the last few months, those who intended on getting a PS3 now know a superior model will be released soon with a great game for dirt cheap.

I'm seeing at most a supply = sales week for the PS3 on MGS week, the Xbox360 seems dead in the water as far as console sales, they really didn't make many provisions, or I haven't been looking hard enough. Wii sales always seem to depend on supply - should Nintendo surge the US with them again, then people will gobble them up, I'd be watching Wiifit sales though, if they can score another 600k week in the US almost a month after it's release then, that shows the type of software it is (hardware).

Three things may end up depending on supply, but I believe that Sony artificially created a demand, by backloging the demand that was already there for a couple of months now.

if i don't write them down somewhere, i'll forget it.. vgchartz is my notepad

I don't doubt that the PS3 will see a nice boost with MGS4, and I wouldn't go as far as saying that GeoW should or even that I think it would be productive to bundle a game like that.

The games that will really move hardware for the 360 now, are the "Come and play with me" type games that are easy to get into and have a wide appeal. Games like Fable 2, Sacred 2, Halo Wars, Too Human, and the old Halo 3 are the keys to accelerating sales for the Xbox360 this year IMO. Price cuts would only assist this process further. My reasoning is this, an Xbox360 owner buys a game. He wants to play Coop or Multiplayer with a friend without a console so he says "Hey I think you should buy an Xbox360 so we can Coop on X and Y game and I think you'll enjoy it, its only $299 now". I don't think its a coincidence that the Xbox360 upcoming games lineup is stacked with quite a few of these types of games.

This is the key for the Xbox360 to broaden its sales base in the states and for Microsoft to sell more of its extremely profitable Live Gold subscriptions. This is targeting the gap between the Wii and the HD consoles at present to try and draw in as many people as you can. Consoles with easy multiplayer are perfect examples of this. The Wii by design is a "Come and play with me" console, and IMO this explains a lot of their success. Their own userbase is their best marketing weapon.

They can afford Price cuts strictly because they expect X numbers of Gold subscriptions to be sold per console and they benifit from current ones as well, they can finally make the console fully reliable and divert a lot of the money used to pay for repairs into profits/price cuts, and the total cost to make the machine will drop with this refresh even more so than the Falcon.

These are some of the reasons why I believe the 360 can outsell the PS3 2nd half of this year. Their lineup is perfect for expanding their userbase.