edit - I should have written a better OP. In other words, the question can be stated as: what will be the farthest away the 360 will be from the PS3, and what is the nearest they'll be during 2009? For reference, the gap is at around 8 million as we enter the year.

Feel free to state when or why the biggest/smallest gap will happen as well.

Rules:

Predictions close at the end of January, feel free to edit your posts until then!

I will update this post later with all the predictions, and the winner(s) will get a cookie at the end :) Since there are two questions, there will most likely be at least two winners - one for the minimum gap and one for the maximum. Possibly more if some people make equally close predictions. As the year goes on, we can start eliminating people whose predictions get too far from the current gap (to the point that another poster will certainly be closer)!

Hmm, I imagine the gap will shrink down to about 5-6 million. 6.5 million at the most and 5 million at the least!

Okay, then.

Minimum gap: 5 million
Maximum gap: 9 million

EDIT: OH, I get it now. Sorry.

Maximum gap 8 million
Minimum gap 3.5 million

7 million (or less) doesn't work as a maximum gap. The gap is already about 8 million as we enter into 2009, so the biggest gap we'll see is at least 8 million.

Sorry if the language was not clear from my part.

There will be potentially two winners (or more if there are ties) - one who had the closest guess towards the maximum gap, and one for the minimum gap.

I thought you meant end of year? Of course the gap will be bigger going into this year.

Minimum gap: 7 million, maximum: 10 million. I predict the minimum one will be sometime in the beginning of Q2, as that's when Sony will drop the price. Then Microsoft will do 'something' (just a feeling, no evidence to back it up) and bring it up massively.

I believe he meant over the course of the entire year.

As in what is the maximum size the gap will achieve, and what it will be at its smallest.

Max 10 million
Min 7 million

By how much 299$/€ costing 80Gb PS3 will outsell x360 ???
For 1st week?
For 1st month?
For first half a year?
Is that even predictable? =)

EDIT: ok, then i guess, maximum: 2 mln. in x360 favour and minimum: 4 mln. in PS3 favour.

After FFXIII and GT5 release in Japan, also Yakuza 3, RE5, Tekken 6, Bayonetta, SF4 and other Japan oriented games + possible PS3 pricecut or slim model, PS3 is going to sell not 1 mln. in Japan, like during 2008, BUT atleast  +4-5 mln. additional sales, which will make the ESTIMATED difference of 8 mln.(it could be less or bigger) to be like 3-4 mln. in favour of x360.

In Euorpe, x360 60Gb model with 2 games(casual bundle) already cost 200 euro, while PS3 80GB(+LBP) cost 400 euro. I think, in next few months the difference in sales won`t be that big like in Christmas in favour for x360, BEST case +30-50k weekly. BUT after KZ2 release i expect ps3/x360 to sell pretty much same, after PRICECUT to 300 euros or/and GT5 release, i expect PS3 to outsell x360 by atleast 50-100k per week.

IN NA, the difference could be like 50-70k in favour of x360, again till KZ2 release. Overall, same scenario like in Europe. =)