14,23 million X360's by years is terribly low, so your prediction model is indeed flawed.

Halo 3 WILL push some units, and then some more. The Gears of war month, nov '06 is interesting and could be used as a land mark. The X360 sold over 500 000 units in that month in the US alone (the game itself 1 mill units, the same month).

Some argue that the installed base is so much bigger now, +10 million for Halo 3 compared to 5-6 million before Gears, and that the vast majority of Halo 3-buyers already own an Xbox360 today.

Could be some truth in that, but I think that theory is wrong in certain aspects. I remember myself buying the original Xbox just for Halo, a couple of weeks after release. And I was never a hard-core Halo-fan. This time will be similar. I won't buy a 360 FOR Halo 3 (I might not even get the game at all) but I will probably buy it at around the time it's released (late sept). Why? Well, it's a lot about psychology, and this applys to a lot of people. It just feels right. The console will feel simply "hot" as soon as Halo 3 is out. And it doesn't hurt that there are tons of big titles being released through the whol fall (actually it just started with Forza2).

And btw, don't get fooled by the "Halo 3-buyers already have an X360" saying. I say, think big! First of all, Halo 3 will sell at least 5-6 million within 6 months. Assume that only 25% of those don't have the console, and that's 1,5 million X360's sold. Ask yourself this, if Halo isnt a system-seller then what is??

And here's some more perspective. Remember how the PS2 consistently sold 20 million consoles/year world-wide(of which 4 mill could be sold in a 2-month US holiday season) and went on to sell +110 million. Think about those numbers and you'll realize how large the number of gamers out there is. Without a next-gen console.

So, certainly the thread-makers prediction model doesn't work, because you just HAVE to take into consideration the month of october this time and the effect of the biggest gaming season we've seen in many years this coming fall:

Bioshock
Blue Dragon
Mass Effect
Halo 3
Assassin's Creed
MOH: Airborne
Orange Box (HL-2 series),

and one or two of Call of Duty 4, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Lost Odyssey, another music game or Unreal Tournament 3.

I believe that will result in at least 16 million X360's sold by 31dec '07, and could well be over 18 million if MS cuts the price (which I'm certain they will, well before the holidays). If my prediction of an august price cut becomes real, I foresee this (NA sales):
Aug: 500 k
Sep: 600 k
Oct: 800 k
Nov: 1.0 m
Dec: 1.7 m
-------
= 4.6 mill

Multiply that with approx 1.5 and you get a world-wide figure of roughly 7 million, which added to the 11 million you have by august according to your graph gives you the 18 million X360's sold by years end. :)

That's insane.  There's no way in hell the 360 will get those numbers.  They will be reasonably fortunate to pull 1 million in December and 600k in November.

I think 15 million by the year's end for the 360 is a bit generous.

I agree with Slimebeast. There are a lot of very good games until christmas on xbox. So I think the 360 will sell much better than a lot of you think...

No, it's not insane. Your numbers btw suggests that the X360 even would fail to beat last years numbers (which had the Wii- and the PS3-launch to battle with, and just Gears of War as the real big title. Btw, does anyone know if the fall of '06 had any other US-millionseller title other than Gears?).

Lemmi give you some numbers to compare with from a similar scenario of the past. Here are US NPD numbers from the holiday '02 season (just like the X360 in '07, this was the PS2's 3:d holiday season, and the 2nd for GC and Xbox):

If you add roughly 10% (for Can) to those you get total NA.  Price at the time was $200, but my prediction is also assuming a price reduction of the X360 (premium at $300 and the core at $200). What you learn from the '02 season is that there is a market "need" for 2.5 million consoles in nov and 4.5 million for december. Obviously I'm not saying the X360 will sell as much as the PS2 at the time because we have the Wii this time, but I can't see the Wii selling 2.7 million in december like the PS2 did, so a part of those will go to X360. 

Also, another difference to 2002 is that the 3 nex-gen consoles today, Wii, PS3 and X360, are much more "nisched" than the 3 were 2002, meaning basically that the Wii has largely a new audience with all of it's casual games and whatnot. So the total next-gen market for holidays '07 could very well be more than the 2.5+4.5=7 mill in NA '02 thanks to that (and still allow an additional mill or so for PS2 sales). Plus this fall/holiday is stronger game-wise than '02, especially for the X360.

I agree with you bigfatj there is no way 360 will hit 18 million. I also think that 15 million is a bit generous.

You got to be kidding me it took 360 19 months to sell 10 million. Now all of a sudden they are going to sell 8 million in 6 months. If you look they only sold 2.1 million for the first 6 months this year. You think they are going to jump up to 8 million in the next six months. Not a chance. 

If you would actually look at the sheet you would see it showing 360 selling 2.35 million in November and December.

This is far more than last year, and is actually a hell of a lot of systems.

No, you got your maths wrong. 14.23 minus 11.88 equals 2.35 million. And you have that as worldwide 2.35, while I say 2.7 for NA alone (translates to over 4 million WW).

Note that I said 18 million with an early price cut (aug/sep). Without one I see 16 mill. Yeah 8 million in 6 months seems like a fantasy when it took 19 months to sell 10 million. But you should read the article someone linked to not long ago, it was an analysis of last gens sales in light of price. Basically the conclusion was that the "sweet spot" for mass market penetration was at $199 and that it took last gen 18 months to get to that price range (starting from $299), and that's what I believe the X360 core version will hit quite soon (and accordingly be marketed towards the casual people, families and their little kids).

Those 10 million sold X360's were nearly all sold at $399 (since more than 90% is the Premium version). But that's all just a solid base and had it's own strategies, but Microsoft talks all the time about real domination of this gen, and reaching entirely different demographics with X360 than they are currently. They clearly have a goal to sell a lot more than 25 mill like last gen, they don't want to be a console just for the hard-core gamer. No no, I'm sure they're aiming at more than 50 million. And that has to start sometime, doesn't it? What time is better than now, when you have a fiasco start of an already late PS3 and you have the Wii-show to learn lessons from (for how to reach the casual gamers, families yada yada)? And, with the flood of games coming out for the X360 but not for the PS this fall through holidays? The time is now, and MS knows it.

 Look at some of my arguments here:

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=2968

And look at the past. As I showed you, the market is there. In 2002 there were 7 million consoles sold in NA alone in the months nov-dec, and yet the then weak Xbox took over 1.5 million of those (being late in the game against an extremely well established PS2, and being without more than one exclusive big hit). Last season, nov-dec, the X360 sold 1.7 mill in NA, only boosted by Gears of War. But this time:

- it's now the prefered choice of traditional gamers (no disrespect for Wii-owners, you all know what I mean. And no disrespect for PS3-owners either, your prime time just isn't here yet), everyone knows the X360 got it's established online following & community, multiplayer games, a broad game library, tons of future titles in development etc.

- it's not a console just for first person shooters anymore (you'll have RPGs like Oblivion, Two Worlds, Blue Dragon, Mass Effect, new car games like Forza2 and DIRT, sneak games like Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell, adventure like Overlord, Naruto, horror games like The Darkness and Jericho, tons of sports & fighting games, RTS like C&C3 and Bladestorm:THYW and World in Conflict, and even some casual/family/kid games like Guitar hero, Eternal Sonata, Sonic, Harry Potter, Katamari, The Bee game, Rock band and also a few upcoming puzzle games. What's the PS3 got against this other than a couple of the exact same titles... Lair?).

- it's not in the shadow of the huge media focus that was aimed at the PS3 & Wii-launch last year.

- this time consumers know what the PS3 is capable of and what it brings - and doesn't bring - to the table, no one will "hold out" any longer in hopes of hidden potential. Many will agree with me when I say that the PS3 so far is a catastrophy.

And it might have that lower price, that mass market price starting at $199. And after all, based on all this I'm predicting no more than a 60-70% sales increase compared to fall '06 for what looks to be the X360's best time of it's life. So I may ask anyone, really, what can go wrong?

The price. The 360 is a very good console, but it's still too expensive. Even with a price cut to $300, it will still be too expensive. (You don't honestly believe that sales will suddenly spike for the core version, right? It's been out on the market for a year and a half now, and clearly people do not want the core version. That argument strains credibility.) If the 360 can't even outsell the PS2, how is it going to sell 8 million units in just six months? After averaging roughly 300-350k worldwide each month so far this year? bigfatj and cjpierciiw are right; it's just not going to happen. That doesn't mean the 360 will have a bad holiday season - far from it - just that it won't get anywhere close to 18 million. I think somewhere along the lines of 14-15 million looks more accurate.

Yes, there's going to be some fantastic games on the 360 (and PS3) this fall. The only problem is that the high entry price of these systems is going to limit sales of both hardware and software. (This is something that both gaming companies and fans are having difficulty grasping.) Just look at the NPD sales for May: the excellent Forza 2 was soundly destroyed by a crummy Mario Party 8 and edged out by the months-old Wii Play. Like them or hate them, these games are cheap, fun, and appeal to the casual market.

The dirty secret no one wants to talk about is that a bunch of high-profile franchises exclusive to 360/PS3 are going to sell way under the numbers done by previous incarnations. The last couple Grand Theft Auto games were 10 million plus sellers - does anyone think that's going to happen with GTA4? I can't possibly see it happening, given the small install bases and high entry prices. (Compare buying a $150 PS2 for GTA3 last generation versus a $400 360 or $600 PS3. Very different.) We'll see what happens; I just think there's going to be shock and disappointment when some of these "AAA" titles struggle to sell a million copies. It shouldn't come as a surprise, but it will be.

Ahh, interesting what you say about the AAA titles. That simply by looking at the game sales charts today you realize that games that one expect to sell, aren't selling, and vice versa (like Forza2 is a disappointment). Damn. Myself, I was wondering if the all the AAA titles would under-sell because they'd compete against each other, but you have a valid point. So in addition to the competition-factor, even if there was say, just GTA 4 and Assassin's Creed this fall, they would dissappoint in sales. I have to agree with that. It will be interesting to see. Bioshock in two months might be the first for test, or might it be Blue Dragon?

 Is there a good thread for predicting sales of the AAA titles btw?