hum and about the WII domination at the end of the fight I'm not so sure...... they are going to take the lead for sure..... but on the long run say 4 years are people still going to be crazy about the actual WII... talking about multimedia possibilities and HD development..... will it be still appealing to the public in 2009 or 2010... I think it is the big unknown for the WII.... and anyway nintendo is probably going to do either release a new system before the other two or a 1.5 version of the actual one when the blu ray / HD dvd war is more settled....

for now I still put my prognostic like that though: 1 WII, 2 360, 3 PS3

A LITTLE MORE SPECULATION :

A POST ON INTERNET (only speculation, but seems possible) :

****

I have it coming from a reliable source that CURRENTLY

The Core will drop to 279
The Premium will drop to 349
The Elite will drop to 449

This will clear out the inventory of the Premium which is the most manufactured 360 and the most sold as they know Premium will sell the most until the demand for Elites pick up in 2008. Elites and Cores have relatively the same manufacturing percentage: low at the moment until FALL this year.

When the 65 nm processor falcons are introduced across all SKUs, the holiday season, a month or so after Halo 3 will see the core drop to $249, The Premium will drop to $299 and the Elite will drop to $399

The Core, Premium and Elite Falcons will have a redesigned motherboard which includes HDMI across all SKUs, a quieter DVD Drive and the falcons will STILL have an extra fan heatsink as Microsoft is not prepared to take anymore risks.

The Falcon will reduce the cost to manufacture the Xbox 360 CPU and GPU by ~40-50% but Microsoft will incure additional costs on the new fans and HDMI across all SKUs. Still at the 249,299 and 399 price, Microsoft will expect a profit from the console by early 2008 when the Q4 results are announced."

****

^^ thats pretty much what most people are expecting, if MS pulls it of right they could see a very good christmas season and put Sony under a lot of pressure

Sincerely, considering the posible future low price of the Xbox360 (around 300$ for the Premium) + strong lineup, I think the console can do pretty well.
For sure, in NA, i will sell like hot cake.
In japan ... no effect.
In europe, since the PS3 will still be +400$, Microsoft can do something

What will do Sony and nintendo during this Xmas ?????????

Is sony able to reduce is 600$ ==> 500$ ?, I believe YES
Is sony able to make a stronger reduction 600$ ==> 450$ ???
Is sony going to release a new modified SKU at a lower price ? Dont think so.

yeah, and I don't think they pay millions of dollars marketing people to fuck that up.... they already have enough problems with the RROD... I'm telling you their plan is just starting to unfold and is calculated like laser guided missile..... now it's all going to be about the fidelity of the PS2 fanbase to Sony....

The only major flaw I see in your theory is that even if PS3 were to significantly catch up, 360 would still have a huge American lead. I see the HD-War being decided next Christmas.

"For the second time in a couple months Microsoft has reduced the price of the XBox 360 in an attempt to improve lagging sales. Even with the earlier price reduction and the release of Microsoft's highly anticipated Halo 3 the Nintendo Wii recently passed the XBox 360 in worldwide sales inspite of being on the market for a full year less than the XBox 360 ..."

"... Microsoft has had problems with manufacturing and has had an unusually high failure rate on their system which has impacted sales. The main problem, nicknamed the 'red ring of death' on fansites has been reported to cause failures in up to 1/3 of systems. Microsoft recently increased their warranty to last 3 years at a cost of $1 Billion in response to these problems. ..."

Basically, if Microsoft does two price reductions within 6 months I can write how major news agencies will report on it ... Their stories will make it sound like Microsoft is desperate to sell as many XBox 360s before their product disapears due to poor sales and hardware problems.

@steven for the HD war i'm not sure that early because it's also depending a lot on the releases of third party ...... every non bias analysis I read said the it won't be settled before at least a year......

Pretty much agree, and, aside from the online stuff (which I haven't done and know relatively little about), what I've said for months.

Sony is still the sleeping giant. If it can get the price down low enough, it's got a crap load of games coming that will easily rival, if not outcompete, the 360, and price difference aside it might start outselling the 360 next holiday. The only way for MS to put the giant down once and for all (or for this generation, anyway) is to kill it now. That means not just having a strong holiday, but also luring in former PS2 owners to the point where the PS3's holiday is a disppointment. This will get 3rd parties to start dropping PS3 exclusivity in droves, and dramatically diminish Sony's chances to reverse their fortunes.

This Christmas is not only a make-or-break year for the X360, but for the whole industry.

Everyone thinks MS will blunder it, but I really don't think they will. They've been saying since before last Christmas that the battle wasn't in 2006, but during Christmas 2007. Look at it: The X360 has by far, the best lineup of games in history. Ever. I know everyone will hate me for saying it, but the X360 lineup is about as good as the Wii and PS3's combined.

Now, you can argue with me about that point, but it's no just "random chance" that MS is stacking the deck with GTAIV exclusive content, Halo 3, Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, Bioshock, and Lost Odyssey exclusives this last quarter. Microsoft, love them or hate them, has really put the biggest, best, most well-balanced year-end lineup in gaming history. Heck, I would say this year's games alone totally trumps the ENTIRE year-end lineup the orig. Xbox ever had.

So then, if MS does drop the price another $50, it's only for the consumers to respond. Which I hope to God they do: The games are just fantastic. GTAIV, H3, Bioshock and Mass Effect are all GOTY contenders, and easily all able to garner 90% rating averages. The Wii, despite great titles, might garner 3, 90% games, and the PS3, 1 90% game in the same time period. This is totally discounting games like GH3, RB, COD4, PGR4, Lost Odyssey, and others.

Now, having said that; it's very possible MS could blunder the whole deal with another issue, or just poor consumer response due to fear of RRODs, or just too much interest in the other systems. It's entirely possible if the Wii was able to put out enough systems, and H3/GTAIV, and such fail to really ignite the X360s userbase.

Nevertheless, having said that, I fully believe with the titles MS has, that they should be able to pull out better sales than the Wii in the US, equal sales with the Wii/PS3 in Europe, and bomb, but not as badly as normal, in Japan. Remember, there are just about 4 to 5 million consoles to be sold ALONE in the US in December. That's alot of friggin' consoles. If the X360 could pull near-PS2 numbers, it could wind up with 2m consoles, while the Wii, PS3 and PS2 scrapped around for the remaining 2-3m consoles, and none able to deal MS the deathblow.

So it really is the biggest year: if MS blunders and sells around what it did last year, it's very unlikely that Devs will continue to release big name IPs for the X360/PS3 combo, as it's pretty much a certainty that if the X360 can't get big sales, the PS3 won't either. That leaves a dominating Wii to carry the rest of the generation, as it easily has the ability to wind up with a 3-4m lead by December if the X360 stumbles, and catapult into console stardom, leaving the X360/PS3 to need years to re-gain their momentum. Holiday 2008 isn't shaping up to be the uber-year, but more of the spoils of war. If MS won 2007 rather handily (3m consoles in December alone), it'd give them enough userbase and sales to get strong dev support in 2008/2009, leaving the X360 to stay close enough to the Wii behemoth through 2008.

If that happened, then a X360/PS3 tagteam combo could limit the Wii's sales in Europe and the US to a 3rd place console in both sectors by late 2008, hampering 3rd party devs in Western markets - forcing the Wii to only hold Stronghold Japan until the inevitable Wii2.