You know what I think?  These threads always tend to oversimplify things.

Take for instance the 360 boost after the price cut.  Was it JUST the price cut that caused it to sell better, or was it the line-up too?  Or possibly the fact that it was so much cheaper than the PS3 overall?  Or maybe it was the NXE coming with Netflix?  Or maybe it was the larger library?  Or maybe it was  fill in the blank?  Or maybe it was any combination of these things?

Its just.  not.  that.  simple.

One thing that we all should remember, though:  the PS3 will likely never be CHEAPER than the 360.  And even when the PS2 and the Xbox were the same price, the older, more popular and weaker console still outsold it.

It would be very difficult to predict how things will play out over the next year or so, be it price, game lineup or public perception.  But the trends presented so far this gen should not be minimized:  the Wii has sold best, the 360 second best and the PS3 third best.  But they all are selling, despite the overall higher prices presented this gen.

This is true.

But...but i keep seeing threads labeled "When will the PS3 surpass the 360".

So obviously the glorious PS3 will surpass the 360 since so many people on this forum believe it will.

COULD the PS3 catch up to and pass the 360 in sales? Certainly. WILL it? Almost certainly not. I'd rate the odds of the PS3 ever catching up at roughly 20%, and dropping with every month that passes. There are two major reasons why:

- The 360 will always be cheaper than the PS3.
- The 360 and PS3 will always share 90% of the same gaming library.

These factors alone make it virtually impossible for the PS3 to catch up. If anything, I expect the 360's lead to grow further, since historically that's what has tended to happen in each generation. The consoles get further apart with time; I can't think of any platform that made a big "comeback" late in the generation. (There's some fluctuation within the first 1-2 years, after that the trends become firmly established and we start seeing clear winners and losers.) PS3 is practically considered a joke in America, where the market is all Wii + 360. That's the sort of thing that tends to get worse over time, not better, as retailers focus inventory on the successful platforms. Look at January NPD software sales, for crying out loud: 1 PS3 game in the top 30!

Furthermore, how is the PS3 going to make up an 8m gap when it's selling only 10m units per year? 360 sales would have to implode to make up any real ground, and all of the data we're getting indicates that that simply is not happening. What's going to change things? A price cut that Sony can't afford, and which Microsoft can undercut again since the 360 is still profitable? More Sony exclusive games? We have a long list of Sony first-party games that were going to save the system, then went on to have little effect on hardware sales.

So no, I'm not seeing it. We have 2+ years of data suggesting the 360 will outsell the PS3, and virtually nothing to indicate the opposite. Sony's one chance to change things was in 2008, when the PS3 had some momentum and was consistently outselling the 360 on a weekly basis. But PS3's poor holiday performance wiped that out completely, and now has virtually ended the discussion entirely.

The one piece of good news: "second place" and "third place" don't mean squat. But Sony needs to improve PS3 software sales so they can turn a profit, which DOES matter.

A price cut might surprise everyone...

Reminder:

Core price has dropped $100 from launch of $299.99 and now called the Arcade

Pro price has dropped $100 from launch of $399.99

Elite price has dropped $80 from launch of $479.99

PS3 has dropped $200 from launch of $599.99 ($100 if you count the 20GB which was next to impossible to find)

There's a lot of fail in this thread, starting with '53 weeks in a year' and climaxing with 'PS3 2009 ~ PS2 2001'.

"In crazzyman we trust"

^^
Has he ever disappointed us?

All I have to say are 2 things:

1. A year has 52 weeks

2. PS3 will outsell the Wii and the 360 when it drops to $300 (assuming the wii is still $250)