@mrstickball, after aligning the launches myself (had to do it seperately because the data for X-box is missing for Japan)....the 360 is ahead by 1 million in the americas, and behind by 300k in others (admitedly launch dates do not co-incide, so once christmas is over it will be above, but for total it doesn't count yet)
And although i can't get Japan sales for x-box for some reason....the 360 is definately ahead there if i remember correctly, probably by about 100k (but selling a lot faster, original sold most in its first year)

So overall, aligning launches for total worldwide, the 360 is only about 900k ahead of where the x-box was.
After christmas (again due to the different launch of PAL territories) the 360 should be ahead by maybe 1.8/1.9 million units, not 2.3 (maybe Japan was being left out for x-box when you did a comparison as well)

Still, i definately see the 360 doing much better than the original, and i also doubt it will have only a four year life, i think a normal 5 years is probable, (2010 release) I think it will definately pass 30M with a probable 35-40M

@slimebeast. i very much doubt the 360 will sell 1 million more than last year over christmas, 15.5million max.

what PS3 releases are going to help it get to 8Million?

With it's terrible holiday lineup, I find it hard to believe Sony will push 3million units. 

well maybe they dont have any software, but christmas isn't about that, it's about buying the most expensive thing(s) you can afford.
And Sony will now have the cheap cheap 40G worldwide for christmas, which increases the number of people who can afford it.

Actually, TWRoO, you can't use the European aligned launches to compare X360 to Xbox sales for a good picture.

The Xbox didn't launch during Christmas like the Xbox 360 did. I believe it launched 2-3 months later in the calendar year (March 14th). Because of this, ioi's hardware comparison charts show that the Xbox has a 300k unit lead because that 300k includes a 4 month headstart on the holiday months.

Try the full aligned charts, it clearly shows the X360 with a commanding 11.8m to 9.5m lead, which pits the November 2001 launch of the Xbox versus the November 2005 launch of the Xbox 360.

Of course, part of this lead is due to the fact that the Japanese Xbox launched in Febuary (11th) of 2002, and the AUS/EU launch was, as said, March 14th, therefore the X360 had already launched in it's primary territories by December 11th (last major territory: Japan), giving the Xbox 360 a 2 month advantage in Japan, and a 4 month advantage in Europe in terms of the overall picture. Nevertheless, the numbers are murky using the aligned monthly launches of the EU numbers.

Japan-wise, the Xbox 360 has about 50,000 more units to go before the entire LTD of the Xbox is gone. It already passed algined launch numbers mid-this-year. And the X360 has totally blown past it, so it's been doing well there too.

@mrstickball; agreed but at the time the charts were not loading for me well (timing out and showing the orange box with the code in it) which is why i used seperate ones and added guesses for Japanese figures.

However i will again say the charts do not show any Japanese data for the X-box, which due to the x-box selling more in it's first year than the rest of it's life must be at least 300k missing from the x-box line.....which is why i gave the figure of 1.8-1.9 (though it may be almost 2.0) million as a replacement for your 2.3 million.

I am not dismissing the much greater success of the 360, but it is not as much of a lead as the charts show (and as the x-box actually sold in Eu, the 4 month headstart might have added a few 10s of thousands to it's number too (a whole extra christmas season))

I have 360 at 14.5 million by the end of the year for a couple reasons:

a) PS3 was, honest and truly, supply constrained in Nov-Dec 2006 in the Americas.  Wii was too, in all three regions.  This year, Nintendo is still supply constrained, but will probably still move more product than Microsoft.  Sony should also come close to matching 360 sales over the holiday with Japan essentially offsetting Europe (PS3 sees mediocre sales in Japan, 360 sees mediocre sales in Europe this holiday season).

b) Sony's price drops and relative strength in Europe/Japan over 360 allow it outsell 360 in those two regions.  Remember, in under 1 year, PS3 will have had 1 (some would say two) price drop(s) in Europe, without even having the chance to sell for a Christmas.  In other words...360 has had 1 extra holiday boost in two regions over PS3, but 2 in Europe.  I think potentially that favors a massive PS3 increase in Europe compared to 360 which will be in Christmas 3 in Europe.

c) The two factors above I think are really going to hurt 360 in Europe, and that will offset stronger USA/Canada sales in my opinion.  Still, I wouldn't be surprised if 360 sales approached 16.0 million, its just not likely in my opinion.  With GTA IV and a bigger price drop 360 could have hit ~17-18 million I think, but neither will be happening in 2007.

I guess that's kind of interesting, but Wii obviously won't continue at the same rate. Surely Nintendo is stocking up for XMAS.