I don't don't expect a price drop next year for Microsoft unless they get the the GPU and CPU on a single chip... a "slim" 360 or whatever is when I expect the next drop... though if Sony drops boy 100 you may see a drop before the holidays from MS... but that's just my opinion...

No dice, mate. One of Yamauchi's (former Nintendo Tyrant) rules Iwata is strongly sticking to is that Nintendo should have the largest warchest possible because the inherent instability of the videogame market and Nintendo only making business in said market.

I do expect a pricedrop, in or about october, though it may just be the removal of the arcade/core, and the lowering of pro to cores current price and elite to pros current price

I say 360 will get to 40 million shipped in fiscal year 2010(quarter ending 2009).

  Talking about sales: Halo1<Halo2<Halo3.... yeah ... you are right, halos best days behind it.

Again, Halo 4 is being made by someone other than Bungie the studio that created the game, so that means it will get lower review scores than the past games. And neither Halo Wars or Halo 3: Recon will come anywhere near Halo 3's sales, so yes I believe that is proof that Halo's best days are behind it. Furthermore the correct order is Halo: Combat Evolved > Halo 2 > Halo 3 game quality wise. Halo: Combat Evolved (solid story driven FPS, the best one ever that wasn't a PC port). Halo 2 (started off well but too much time playing as the Arbiter. The Grunts are too cliched. Story fails to take off after the point where it should). Halo 3 weakest story of the bunch. Graphics failed to really use the capabilities of the 360, so most people refer to them as just Halo HD). Game Rankings scores: Halo: CE 95.4, Halo 2 94.5, Halo 3 93.352.  I predict  Halo Wars review scores won't get out of the 80s (disbanding the team is evidence that Microsoft didn't have much faith in it) and that Recon won't be as highly regarded by the critics as the first three (as it is only going to be a 3 to 5 hour game that doesn't deal with Master Chief and Cortana).

"360 had no Halo or Gears as a launch title so claiming NextBox needs one is foolish."

This statement can only be made by people that don't know the history of xbox consoles. If you go back to December 2004 when information about the 360 came out, you will see that almost at the exact same time that information on the 360 started to come out information on Halo 3 started to come out as well including the Official XBOX Magazine's first cover picture and story for Halo 3, followed by the first Halo 3 videos on the next issue's demo disk. The only reason that most people bought the 360 in its earliest days and the reason that it was sold out during Holiday '05 was because Halo 3 was going to be on the system. If you watched a program like Entertainment Tonight prior to the release of the 360 when they were talking about Halo parties, all the celebrities featured were saying, "I have to have a 360 now because Halo 3 is going to be on the system in two years."

Microsoft took the extra time between the launch of the 360 to work on bringing the console's price down for the release of Halo 3 and to bring out a new franchise in Gears of War (which debuted on the MTV special prior to E3 2005).

The only game that could create equal fervor for the next XBOX is Gears 3.

36-38 more likely... so 43-47 lifetime

"MS doesnt invest in a brand new interface for 360 for just one year."

They would if it was actually a beta, demo, or early version of the interface that will be shipped with the nextbox. It would let them see how people liked it. Ie. like a focus group.

You are just FUDDING the old "don't buy it, 4 years and it's gone!" meme.

Hiiiin wrong again .... trilogy denial :

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1041

Sorry for this off-topic posting.