In all reality, if the PS3 failed to get a price cut before September, it's pretty much DOA, even if it won 2009's Holiday by good margins.

At the end of this year, we're realistically looking at a 9 MILLION gap, or slightly less.

But as next year comes into play, the X360 is still poised to outsell the PS3 by massive margins. When the year starts, I think the X360 outselling the PS3 by a 2:1 margin, worldwide, could be a near-weekly occurrence.

So with a 9m lead, 2009 could be brutal. The X360 could, and should, lead the PS3 by 50,000-100,000 on a weekly basis, and most likely average a 300,000 unit lead/mo on any given month.

So by March, the lead would be 10,000,000 units. If September rolled around, it could be as high as 12,000,000 - and then we must question what further MS drops would do.

Quote me on this: If the PS3 doesn't drop it's price by June next year, Sony's PS3 is pretty much DOA for 2nd place this gen, and will have too larger of a gap.

At a 11 million console margin, the Playstation 3 would take far too long to recoup the gap, because MS will still be making plays to beat Sony, and for all intents and purposes - should stalemate Sony on most weeks after a PS3 price drop. Why? Because the $200 pricepoint is a great one, and MS can still drop to $169.99 for the Arcade next year, and easily...Heck, it could be $159.99 next year for the Slim model.

Could you imagine a $159.99 Slim model vs. a $399.99 PS3?

27 million to 28 million for XBox 360.

45 million to 46 million for Wii.

19 million to 20 million for PS3.

*Edited

IMO the PS3 is going to struggle to make 19 million now, 3 more weeks left with this weeks sales 350k it has to do on average 700k over the next 3 weeks to make 20 mill by 09 ...

numonex - You realize by saying 27-28 for X360, and 20-21 for PS3, that both systems are going to sell the exact same # for the rest of the year....Right?

Whereas the X360 is, in reality, outselling the PS3 by about 7:4

VGChartz Hardware data for the period 05th Jan 2008 to 01st Mar 2008:

If you look at those numbers the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 by a mere 210,000 over the holidays and yet went on to post 50% higher sales the first quarter of the next year. Like it did last year, the first quarter will show off Microsofts strengths and Sonys weakness even more than the holiday season. The number of people willing to buy at that $400 price point would likely be critically depleted by the end of the holiday season.

I would expect the Xbox 360 to double the sales of the PS3 in the first quarter next year. That means if say 3,000,000 consoles are sold between them like last year the Xbox 360 will sell 2,000,000 and the PS3 1,000,000. That means that if the gap from this year is 8,000,000 between them, it will probably be greater than 9,000,000 before the start of the 2nd quarter.  I think Microsoft is sitting on the friendly side of a slippery slope. The further the lead increases over the PS3, the more the sales of the Xbox 360 will increase relative to the PS3. If Sony takes no action until Q3, the gap between them could reach well over 12 million consoles.

As for a point of no return? That depends on Sonys willingness and ability to increase sales and Microsofts aggressiveness. Remember Microsoft can afford to cut the price again if they sense they could drive Sony out of the market, and it would be economically viable for them to do so in the long term if they could. At this point, with inaction from both parties the point of no return has been reached. Overall it is still reasonable for Sony to right the ship, but the window for them to do so is closing rapidly. They do not have the luxury of a lead like Microsoft did so the earlier the can make their move the better the results for them. If they make no move by March/April then I would expect that they have resigned themselves to a 3rd place finish and will probably finish the generation 25 million consoles or more behind the Xbox 360.

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=All&cons2=PS3&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&start=39446&end=39789&weekly=1

So far this year in 2008:
Wii = 21 million consoles sold. approx. 429k sales per week
X360 = 9 million consoles sold. approx. 184k sales per week
PS3 = 9 million consoles sold. approx.  184k sales week
(49 weeks of VGC sales data: from 29th Dec 07' to 6th Dec 08')

Squill -

For comparison, though, the Playstation 3 didn't outsell the X360 during Holiday 2007 nearly as well as what the X360 is now, so the margin will be much more disaserous than the PS3/X360 comparison earlier in 08.

Here are the damning numbers:

VGChartz Hardware data for the period 03rd Nov 2007 to 05th Jan 2008:

Versus:

VGChartz Hardware data for the period 01st Nov 2008 to 06th Dec 2008:

Last year, the PS3 led by a scant 210,000 units in Nov-Dec, but posted a nice 600,000 lead in Jan-Mar. One should expect the margin to be vastly in favor of the X360 in Jan-Mar 2009. I should raise my predictions to a 100,000 unit lead per week, and over 350,000/mo.

You have to think how many people are going to be willing to spend $400 on a games console come Jan - March?

People feel the pinch around this time on any given year, throw in a recession and people really will be keeping their wallets shut tight.

I just edited my post changing 400k to 210k to reflect these numbers. Its interesting that we both wrote pretty similar posts at the same time, you just type faster!

But WOW, those are pretty damning numbers right there. Could we be looking at a lead of 10,000,000 before the start of the financial year if Sony doesn't make deep cuts to the price of the PS3? I can almost see the PS3 dropping below 20% market share worldwide considering the Wii is currently ripping apart sales records left/right and center and the Xbox 360 is currently holding its own market share steady at 30%.

I think 10,000,000 is a lock if Sony doesn't drop the price before the end of their financial year (isn't it at the end of March, 2009?).

Here's my take on what we're going to see with the gap between now, and March (because I don't see the PS3 dropping before late Mar):

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That'd put it just above 10 million, but the key is that I'm showing the PS3 to have a whopping 1.5m consoles sold in January-March, which may be high.