Hey,

The year 08 will be a head to head this week and the Xbox360 will most likely win this year over the PS3 by 500k - 1million.

The gap will be like 7.5 million at the end of the year. And guess what, consoles will be sold after Xmas. I don't see this trend Xbox360 > PS3 stopping. So a PS3-price-cut is a strange thing. Sony is still in the reds, they might break even after Xmas. But in such a recession and with the latest news about Sony firing 16000 people and reducing 1.1 million Dollar of costs, I don't know if a price-cut is possible in 3 months. If it happens though, Sony will lose even more money. So April is the earliest I can imagine a price-drop.

That would give the Xbox360 another 12 weeks of outselling the PS3. So how big will the gap get? I think 8.5 million is a good shot. What do you guys think.

A 8.5 gap would mean that the PS3 needs to outsell the Xbox360 from that point on by 500k every month to pass the Xbox360 in November 2010. This will be a really hard job for sony.

What are your thoughts? is my scenario possible? What do you think about the size of the gap?

P.S. No, the PS3 is not doomed. Developing costs are too high to focus on one console. Publishers need both.

Just to let you know its Billion.

I think Sony are doing very good this xmas. They are selling more of they're profitable PSP, and selling less of they're non profitable PS3. This means they are not losing as much money as they would be if the PS3 was doing 360 sales at the minute. In this economic climate they are more interested in financial issues than market share.

I think the gap will get bigger until Summer next year when it will decrease

If there actually is a PS3 pricecut in March, the gap will begin to close pretty rapidly, I think. If there's not a pricecut, I think we'll see a repeat of this year.  If Killzone 2 reviews well, and the pricecut happens around the same time, there will be a pretty significant jump in PS3 sales, I think.

The gap is too large to close in a single year though, I think. The 360 will still be ahead of the PS3 by EoY 2009, no matter what happens.

Actually, by selling less PS3's, they are losing more money since they have the cost to manufacture them. Only when they sell that the loss is reduced.

Pretty high.

the gap will be increasing steadily even when KZ2 released, we learned MGS4, GTZIV not pushed console hardware.

yes it will be higher than before KZ2 released but not as high as predicted.

Yeah even if they sell it at a loss they are still making far more money then the systems sitting on store shelves. Even if theyre losing $50 per console (this is just a random number) that is alot better then making the console for $450 and having it sit on the shelves.

"A 8.5 gap would mean that the PS3 needs to outsell the Xbox360 from that point on by 500k every month to pass the Xbox360 in November 2010. This will be a really hard job for sony."

Very interesting, but its lead by 09 is likely to reach 8 million, If we don't see any price cut until september (can Sony REALLY justify a price cut right now?) the lead can grow to some 10+ units.

Not to mention how many consumers in Jan - March will be willing to spend $400 on a games console? Jan - March next year I think we will see the PS3's lowest ever weekly sales.

Dirty, the lead will be bigger than 8.5 by the time that Sony drops the price.

We're looking at 8.5-9.0 by the end of the year + whatever comes up in January till Sony drops the price. It's unlikely that the PS3 will lead the X360 on any given week till they drop the price. The only X factor would be the KZ2 launch, which may get it close, but that's likely only to be a blip on the radar.

And having said that, the PS3 outsold the X360 by 600,000 units - 200k a month, in January through March this year (08), but it's lead on the X360 right after it's price cut are nowhere near what the X360 is doing to the PS3 now (Nov-Dec's cume for the PS3 in 2007 had it 210,000 units above the X360. The X360 managed that lead this past week alone.)

Realistically, we're looking at a 10,000,000+ gap for Sony to overcome by March, should it decide to drop the price.

Then, if they do, we assume that it's going to sell some sort of gaudy numbers that would make the X360 lose a lot of ground, but that's questionable. The X360 is selling far more consoles at the $200-300 pricepoint than the PS3 did at it's $400 pricepoint.

So having said all of that, unless Sony gets major momentum in 2009, the gap will be 10m, and be nearly impossible for the PS3 to whittle away in any sort of relevancy. The earliest date that the PS3 could overtake the X360...IF it ever did, would be late 2011 - and by then, the X360 successor would be out, and Sony would have lost so much cash to beat the X360 for 2nd place, it'd be the litmus test of what a Pyrrhic victory is.

Console sales are dead the first few months of the year, you can't regain lost holiday sales ground then.
I bet consoles will sell more in any single week in December then the single month total for Jan-Mar.