Well, i myself am not completely sure about this. I think it's whether or not 360 gets a price cut. If mircosoft gives it a price cut in the holiday season, and if sony doesn't do anything (very unlikely) it could take till 2010 to do it.

Of course, if the PS3's line-up in 2008 turns out to have some triple A games that are well advertised, it's got a chance at doing it next year.

Theres many factors that the PS3 could catch up by middle to end of 2009. For 2008, Sony would literally need a miracle.

A the same time the 360 could very well end up widening the gap even further becuase from what I've seen there are more exclusives that loook more attractive at this time than for those on the PS3.

In 2009, that's for sure

it's looking more and more like late 2010 will be the year the PS3 passes in WW sales. But it in NA it appears the PS3 will not pass the 360.

Taking the data over the last 6 months i have come up with the following. 4 base cases

-1) PS3 outsells Xbox by 46.4K/units/week   ( then PS3 will win by 14-November-2010)

-2) PS3 outsells Xbox by 66.4K/units/week   ( then PS3 will win by 21-February-2010)

-3) PS3 outsells Xbox by 86.4K/units/week   ( then PS3 will win by 4-October-2009)

-4) PS3 outsells Xbox by 106.4K/units/week   ( then PS3 will win by 12-July-2009)

(I still stand by my predictions from Jan08, which look to be close ;))

BTW , Factoring out MSG4's boost. PS3 is only outselling Xbox360 by around 37.5K/ month....so MSG4 gave a boost of approx 9K/month when averaged over the 6 months. Considering this we need alot of "system sellers" to get to the levels needed for the PS3 to beat Xbox360 any time soon.

YES 100% i would go as far as to say first of january

It's very easy to let the fanboy in you take over and say, "yes, no doubt in 2009", but the realist point of view is telling me 2010. It's really not a matter of "if", just a matter of when. Few people would dispute that the 360 is eventually destined for 3rd place having grossly squandered their 1 year head start.

@Nidan

Nice graphs. Here are my thoughts after analysing them.

The PS3 was outselling the 360 between cases 1 and 2 from January to April but has since went below case 1 when GTA4 came until MGS4 hit, where PS3 outsold 360 by 200k for one week. However, its almost back to normal now and it remains to be seen whether there will be any increase from here.

From August 2008, the big exclusives will start to hit again all the way until Resident Evil 5 in March 2009.

Therefore, I cant see even case 1 happening for Q3, Q4 2008 and possibly Q1 2009. This is strong evidence that the PS3 will not catch up until 2010 (if at all). The PS3 will have to hit quite a lot above case 4 (they would need to outsell by 130-150k weekly, i call it case 4++) for practically all of 2009 to catch up by end of 2009.

For this case 4++ to happen, the next big exclusives Killzone, FF, GT and God of War have to be superbly amazing 98+ games that releases in early 2009 and appeal to the mainstream above and beyond the core gamer and at least $100 price cut worldwide and a slim version with BC. As you know, all these are highly unlikely at this point due to Sonys profitability strategies (plus their own corporate forecasts of 10m) and we dont even know whether those games will make it until Holiday 2009.

2009 is the year that PS3 needs to deliver and I think its the real put up or shut up year for the PS3. MANY people on this forum have told us it will be 2008. Now its 2009 (and people are already going from June to December). Frankly I think we will be hearing this next year: 2010 is the year of the PS3.

@Niden

I was wondering if you can add additional lines to the graph to account for potential future XBox 360 price cuts ... I think that is an important part most people miss as a lower price always equates to more units sold.

1 main factor Sony is selling more is because of price cuts. I think if MS became aggressive there, Sony might never catch up.

I agree that if MS cut the price of thier console it would make it better value and lead to higher sales. Personally i think that if MS will win this generation if the gap falls between the PS3 and Xbox360.

The price cut will show us if Sony is under presure from shareholders to make a profit or if they are worried about MS, and i dont think they will follow with a price reduction.

if the sales gap narrows by half from 46.4K to 23.2 K, basically it will take until 2012 to catch up.