Got your attention? Good. But I am dead serious about this scenario.

The math really does work. 40M shipped by the end of 2009 is really not far-fetched.

Let's look at the data:

Microsoft xbox CFO is telling us that the 360 will sell/ship over 25M within the month of November. She is not lying. She the the CFO and these are official financial figures, not marketing hype. 

VGC is projecting that in Nov-Dec the 360 will move 3.8M units. Since December is a much larger month than November, we can safely estimate that 2.2 of these units will be sold in December.

Therefore, together, it is projected that Microsoft will ship 27.2M units by the end of 2008.

This leaves 12.8M to get to 40M by the end of 2009.

Can the 360 do it? Let's do the math:

In this quarter (Q4), Microsoft is going to sell about 5M units WW. Let's assume a nice growth of 20% for Q4 next year and sales of 6M units during that quarter. Optimistic? A little. But with the recession over, a nice "Halo Recon" bump, a slim design and an additional price reduction (say $230 for the premium model) it is very plausible to see such growth.

The 6M units in Q4 2009 leaves 6.8M to be sold in the other 3 quarters to get the to 40M.  This means sales of 2.27M for each of the other quarters. And, wow, this is exactly what the 360 sold in Q3 this year!

The math works! The 360 can really get to 40M next year. Perhaps an optimisitic scenario, but really not out of the question.

And if it can really do it, perhaps the 100M lifetime sales claim are not that far fetched.

Lol, the 360 will be lucky to do 37-40 million LTD

They've been selling an average of about 10m per year, so it'll be close. The economy is a wild card, as is a PS3 price drop.

If MS could cut the price again for next holiday, and release another Halo/GoW level app, it would likely cinch it.

However, 100m lifetime is far fetched. The 360 is hitting its 4th holiday, and should be peaking in sales (based on past consoles). Unless MS is planning on running the 360 for longer than I expect, they'll get one more holiday that truly belongs to this generation. By 2010, we'll be at least hearing about the NeXtbox, and in 2011, at latest, the console will be released. In between, we might see price cuts on the Wii, and maybe even a new Wii (or WiiHD) that could take a bit out of their sales. And as the PS3s price drops, you can expect that competition to be strong as well.

In the end, I'll be surprised if they can even hit 60m by the end of the console's life span.

I think 40M is the top end of sales M$ are hoping for at the end of 09.

The 360 will have its low low price all year and I can't see it "dying off" like the mass like to proclaim.

Hanafudas avatar expresses perfectly my feelings towards your post.

360 propably peaked in its 3rd year, so it should sell less in 2009.
So, 30 million sold at the end of 2009 would be a closer estimation than 40 million.

I'm expecting 30-33 Million consoles sold. If it reached 40 that would be amazing. I'm not expecting that however. For that thats far fetched.

@misterd: A 3 years old console that has sold about 23 million, averages around 7,5 million a year.

This year, the 360 will end up selling about 10M.

With the price cut (and maybe another one), and a nice momentum coming out of this holiday season - next year could be even better.

bdbdbd - "360 propably peaked in its 3rd year, so it should sell less in 2009."???

That's what the PS3 fanboys said about the 360 for 2008. "The 360 is dying", "The 360 has saturated its base". And look what is happening now.  It is kicking ass globally.

What happened? the 360 was the first console to get to the $199 price point and it is really starting to tap into the mass market. No, it will never be a Wii, but it is gathering speed and momentum and it will not slow down.

Realistically, 10M units is the low end of the 2009 sales expectations. 13M units = an optimistic but possible scenario for the year. 

@amirnetz: Yeah, 360 reached less than 200 price first because a) it was the first in the market b) it had to. GC was the first to reach 99 and despite of it being so cheap, it didn't sell anyway. Basically what have happened is, that 360 have lost its advantage in games library.

So six million sold in 2009 sounds about right to me.

I would quote you on that, but I hate having junk filling up my signature.