Im not asking for any graphs to be made on holiday seasons etc, that would be complicated. Im just saying that people should keep them in mind. Look at last christmas for example, the 360 increased it's lead over the PS3 by like 2M in less than 2 months.

If then the PS3 has a mega holiday boost this christmas and reduces the 360 lead to maybe 7M, then those 'overtaking forecasts' would change quite alot. If this happened the following fall again then these numbers would change again.

I know those numbers are averages, but they are inaccurate due to this, and there is really no way to make them accurate.

I think the Xbox 360 is going to break the graph. Whats going to happen when the gap reaches 9,000,001? Does it stretch on to infinity?

kowenicki said: @jagged Why.... you can see that from the graphs already surely? Plus I cant be bothered...

LOL.  Actually, I cannot see the graphs.  But holiday seasons do account for a large portion of the sales for a year.  Not sure how you could take this into account, but the weekly sales needed might change based on that.  The weekly sales needed would be lower during the summer and higher during the holidays.  Those are just my thoughts.  Hell of a hill for the PS3 to climb.

Well, I tried to send you a message so as to not clutter your thread, but the send failed.

I am seeing blank areas where the graphs should be. No broken images or anything. But the area is being taken up by the blank space because your comments are pushed to the side of where I am assuming the graphs should be.

I am using FireFox.

This shows how a price cut can change things. Actually, by your graphics you can conclude that this 'PS3 have to sell x units to overcome X360' is BS since it took a Holiday to expand the GAP almost 4mln units.

There's certainly hidden demand for PS3 that's being hold back by price, the only question is how much. In fact, to hold it's position, MS must catter towards the recent popularity of NATAL, launching a killer title with it. The problem is, MS is slowly killing it's IP studios and relying on old Franchises and Multiplats, wich usually fare beter in the console. The biggest exclusive title outside Halo and Forza is Alan Wake, wich will come to PC too(I'm getting mine on it).

My point is, the tide can change and the charts above are loud example. The question is what can MS do apart from cutting the price again(wich is manageble but not the best option). In my opinion Natal is the answer, but a very uncertain one.

lol not on the same day you're not.

Some people really have to look up the word average...

Yeah, I knew every PS3 owner has a VERY powerful PC. And the biggest exclusives besides Halo and Forza are

• Gears of War (5 million each game)
• Fable (3 million)
• Splinter Cell (2 million for Conviction is my bet)
• Mass Effect (2 million or slightly more)
• Left 4 Dead (2 million)

Alan Wake will be great, no doubt, but it is not as big as an IP as the games I listed above. Same for Crackdown. You have to wait quite a while to play Alan Wake on PC I guess. The Xbox360 version will be released first, thats what I read.

Good work on the graphs and it does look very impressive for the 360. However, as it can be seen from the huge increase made by the 360 in its lead over the PS3 from the price cut, I think a PS3 price cut will have a similar effect. The brand name is still huge in Europe and I really think the PS3 will fly off the shelves when a cut comes (especially when it reaches the £199 price). I expect a huge increase in Japan too. America is a different story and MS may just have done too much damage for the PS3 to really recover there. Even if Microsoft counter with another cut I don't think it will greatly dent the PS3 potential boost in sales as I expect them to remove the Pro SKU and reduce the elite price which I don't think will have anywhere near as big an impact as the previous price drop (although I may finally pick one up!)

I don't know if the PS3 can catch up to the 360 anymore but I expect it to reduce the gap to close to what it was at the PS3's launch (and then we can at least start using the aligned launch argument again )

Of course MS has the Upper Hand, since it launched first and hence can play the reaction game, while Sony has to catch up, but there was a trend of sales that was changed with the price cut. The fact is : there's a limit to x360 price cuts. Sony is probably is trying very hard to cut PS3 costs, for several reasons(profitability, possibility of price cuts), so although I don't believe in a PS3 costing the same as a low profile x360 SKU, I guess is a matter of time until the difference is irrelevant.

Mind you, I'm not saying PS3 is going to have a price cut this year(everything points to it, but it's still rumours). In this case I predict 13mln X360 this fiscal year and 9mln PS3. What I'm saying is that MS position is not so strong as it seems. The X360 is still perceived as the low end machine in the majority of the world(US and UK are exceptions), while the PS3 is seen as the top machine, but expensive.

Up until now, MS strategy has been marketing towards the fact that is very similar to the PS3, but cheaper. It worked. That's why they fougth so hard to get 3rd party support. But they need to start changing that. They need now to produce new experiences only possible in the x360. NATAL is the answer. But they also need games to go along.

Denying the fact that is possible to PS3 to change the tide of sales is doing exactly what Ps3 fanboys did in August 08, before the price cut, when we said it was temporary and soon PS3 would come back in top.

BTW. I live in Brasil, I wouldn't get Alan Wake in X360 not even if I had one. Games here are very expensive and I favour PC when possible.