Until the rumors and picture of the Xbox 360 price cut in September I had been wondering how Microsoft was going to top the Sept-Dec period in the USA this year, with more Wiis out there, PS3 a better value at $400 now, and no Halo 3. With the price cut and Gears of War 2 & Rockband 2 & some other exclusives (timed or otherwise) I think Microsoft can now top its numbers from Sept-Dec 07'.

Microsoft shipped 4.9m Xbox 360s from Oct-Dec 2007 worldwide, with over 3m sold in the Americas in that period.

This year...mid July-mid August will be fairly big for the temporary $299 clearance sale of the 20 gig model.

Looking back through the Gamedaily archives in 2007 NPD reported Xbox 360 sales in the USA as

528k - Sept

366k- Oct

770k - Nov

1260k- Dec

This year I think 360 could see similar numbers in September on the price drop, followed by a better Oct-Dec. For the Americas I think VGC numbers will go something like:

500k - Sept (5 weeks)

360k - Oct (4 weeks)

820k - Nov (4 weeks)

1720k - Dec (5 weeks)

If you scale it back down just for the USA, I think Sept-Dec is going to be up at least 5%-15% for 360 which is pretty good growth since Xbox 360 had a price drop and its marquee last year heading into the final months as well. Growth in Others & Japan this year should be more substantial. The point though is that Xbox 360 should be able to rise into the 5m+ year territory in the USA, and get close to 6m in the Americas. Thats pretty solid and should all but assure that the 360 eventually ships 20m in the Americas, putting it in N64 territory (20.6m shipped in the Americas). Genesis & SNES had 5-6m peak years in the USA if Steven Kent's Ultimate History of Videogames is to be believed, though Genesis never hit 20m in the Americas, and the SNES topped at 23.3m shipped in the Americas. If 360 sells 5m+ in the USA, and comes close to 6m in the Americas this year than only NES, PS1, PS2 & Wii will have significantly higher peaks  (NES supposedly shipped 9m in the Americas in 1989 and likely sold ~8m that year, PS2 sold 9.3m in the Americas in 2002, PS1 had a similar early trajectory to NES, so it probably did 8m sold in 1997, and Wii hit 7.2m in the Americas last year and will get to ~11m in the Americas this year).

Overall, I think this should be the best Xbox 360 quarter will have, with 5.25m to 5.75m Xbox 360s shipped in the quarter.

TheSource rules!

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=27665

Hmm... I would predict slightly less sales for September. Even though it will be recieving a price cut I firmly believe sales wont be as high as Halo 3.

I think sales are going to sky rocket.

I think October might be higher because of people preparing to get Gears of War 2, which comes out the first week of November.

i think the 360 will have its best holiday ever this year, with gears2,banjo,fable2,infinite undiscovery,tales of vesperia,last remnant, rock band2 and many more, then u factor in the price cut across the board and u have its best holiday ever.

Pretty solid analysis if not worthy of a news posting by VGC. I pretty much agree overall just a few minor things I would look at as far as Sept and Oct. September I'm not sure if it will be that high, but it very well could be and likely very close. The reason I say this is it somewhat depends on how many Arcades SKUs they can get out there. Because I know for many $199 is going to be somewhere in the category of insta-buy and no brainer. So MS must stock a few more of these than the normal 10-20% they have to date IIRC.

October on the other hand has both Fallout 3 and Fable 2 while leading into Gears of War 2. So you could see some early buyers that month with titles like these out before Gears 2. It certainly is going to be a blockbuster season I would imagine with these price points going forward and probably the best to date. With that said I believe they could even surpass this next year as they have a lot of wiggle room with the mainline pro SKU in the coming years. It all depends on the SW lineup in 09 however.

Don't think September will be that high...

Nicely done Mr. Young John Holmes.

People that buy consoles in preparation for a release two weeks after that have already bought a 360 already. The battle for the hardcore is pretty much done at this point. All that's left is casual gamers, that will ignore gears, and price sensitive gamers, which do not salivate in anticipation of a $60 shooter