What interests me is why the X360 is slightly ahead of the PS3 in English speaking nations, but behind the PS3 in non-English speaking nations. I know correlation does not prove causation, but I think societal perceptions of Microsoft may contribute to their dismal sales in Japan and the lower (than PS3) sales in other non-English speaking nations.

It's because the PS3 has worldly appeal and the 360 doesn't. It's really as simple as that.

As previous console generations have proven, market 'saturation' is largely defined by price.  The bulk of the 360's sales will come at mainstream prices, not at current prices, so long as it remains in production (unlike the GC and Xbox) and continues to receive third party support.

Given that it has very strong third party support, and Microsoft has vowed to support the 360 well beyond the short lifespan the original Xbox suffered from, current sales are nowhere near "market saturation."

Your claim that saturation is defined by price is hollow; neither the GameCube nor the XBOX received noticeable benefits from their price drops. Nor did the N64 gain sales momentum when it got price drops, nor the Saturn. Price is only a single factor in what drives people to buy a game system. If a product is not wanted, no amount of price drop is going to make it look appealing. If you want a more personal example, if the price of industrial-grade concrete drainage pipes (the kind that are 3 feet in diameter at smallest) dropped to $1 a foot and was guaranteed to not go back up in price, would you go and stock up on it? Unless you had some sort of use for it, of course not.

I suppose I could try to find a use for that whatever it is...

I think price is a factor why people do not buy something rather than for buying them. Because of that, there are many people not interested in the 360 that would not buy it regardless of the price.

Industrial-grade concrete drainage pipes are these enormous tubes of concrete, usually about 20 feet long (you can find them shorter than that, of course). They're usually used for sewer connections in large buildings. Contractors that work on construction of new buildings buy them, but not many other people would be inclined to.

y are ppl saying its ugly? i believe its a matter of prefferance... I really like the ps3 design,,, it goes really well with my entertainement system.... the 360 is the ugly one....(this is where i say its my oppinion and no one can say nything) :D

I also added a caveat, saying that if third party support continued to be strong for the 360, unlike the GC and Xbox 1, and production continued, price would be the factor in market saturation.

Xbox ceased production, and was never available in mass quantities at low price, due to problems with nvidia.  Gamecube had terrible 3rd party support, terrible marketing by nintendo (it was forever pegged as a toy for 9 year olds), and lacked a dvd drive, using inferior 1.5gb mini discs next to the full dvds offered by sony and xbox. 

The n64 suffered many of the same problems the gamecube had.  Saturn had poor third party support since it was often difficult to program for.  And since you apparently don't remember, Sony dropped the price well below the Saturn's price point early on - they were rewarded with huge sales in response while Saturn floundered with their high cost of manufacturing.  If you're going to use a system in your argument, at least remember how things went down!

I stand by my statements. The xbox 360 has excellent third party support, Microsoft has stated they intend to back the 360 well beyond the lifespan the original xbox had, and if it maintains production its 'saturation' will be determined by price.

Your argument still rings hollow. Microsoft has done the exact same thing with the 360 as they did with the original XBOX, the only noteworthy difference being that Sony didn't have the limelight already this time around (meaning it worked a bit better). But buying support still hasn't helped them overcome their market cap; the 360 is still basically the same as the PS3 save in terms of a handful of very genre-specific titles.

The system's lack of a meaningful selling point to differentiate itself sufficiently from its competition is why it's approaching market saturation. Every last feature on it can be found on another console in some form, and every last game on it has an analogous game (if not the exact same game) on another system. Price drops are not going to change this fact; at best, they will bring a handful of people still on the fence over to the 360 camp, but even then, they're only nabbing people from the same crowd they nabbed people from with the original XBOX. Who do they draw from when everybody who's even willing to consider the purchase of a 360 has made up their mind?

ZzzzzzZzzzzzz

Because M$ isn't interesting in bragging rights, but instead are interesting in profits...question is the PS3 lost nearly $4 bln over the pass couple of years...how much longer can Sony take these loses?