Sony has Japan in the bag in 2009. The release of Final Fantasy XIII alone should blow any chance 360 ever had of catching up with the PS3 in there and should net Sony megatons on hardware sales whether they make the likely and smart decision to drop the price there or not. Yakuza 3, Gran Turismo 5, Demon's Souls, and ICO 3 will likely help keep PS3 significant in Japan all year long.
In Europe, everything comes down to one game; Gran Turismo 5. The moment that Sony releases that game is the moment that Sony secures itself above the 360 in Europe. Most likely this won't happen until the end of the year though, so Sony needs to find some way to push PS3 sales along in Europe. Unfortunately, with the current situation of the Euro, a price drop is most likely out of the question. Things will most likely improve by the end of the year and Sony should have chipped away at the manufacturing cost of the PS3 by then to make a nice little profit on every console sold, but I predict Sony is just going to have to drag itself off lesser releases in Europe through most of 2009 unless Killzone 2 is a runaway hit.
America is a much more hopeless region for Sony. I can see them doing moderately well with big exclusives that resonate in the region such as Killzone 2, God of War III, M.A.G. and Uncharted 2, but Sony really doesn't have a Gran Turismo or Final Fantasy for America so they're just going to have to rely on a price-drop to save them in the region which would best be done right before the Christmas season when the PS3 has reached profitibility.
