I'm expecting a price cut just before GTA IV. Not insisting it, just guessing that would be an opportune time.

dude, the PS3 didn't close the gap at all. It's selling just as it used to. The only difference is that the Wii was consistenly selling less every week.

About the price cut: I suppose that a price cut in Europe is immenent. Let's say that they drop the price by 50 euro and the sales will go up for a bit. As for the US, they're on a roll right now selling quite a bit. I'd say a price cut will happen during Q1 2008

Canadian prices will never be on par or below American prices, unless the dollar trades at 1.20+. Things such as shipping, smaller market size, etc have a direct impact on the pricing. Don't expect it anytime soon. Go across the border if you really care so much about the price.

won't happen this year, and ps3 closing the gap in america? It's being outsold like 3 to 1 on this very site WITH the price drop in effect. See kids, mulitple price drops usually happen when a company is failing.

Actually, they have already cut their price, by adding the bundled software.

As far as I've seen in the rumor mill, and various places, my opinion is this:

Microsoft will include the bundled games until the end of Christmas, and revert to normal boxes.

When GTA IV comes out, they will drop the price another $50, if not before. As far as I've heard, MS has given, or will give, the option of detatching the bundled FM/MUA games, so they can drop the price another $50 and re-sell the games (notice no "not for resell" stickers on the X360?)

The 360 is back to selling under 200k weekly this soon after the Halo 3 launch. This probably means that Microsoft will consider it a prudent move to drop prices before the holidays, although they wouldn't exactly do badly even if they chose to wait for 2008.

Of course that's assuming they were waiting to see how long Halo 3 keeps their sales up. It's also possible that they'll be happy with just outselling the PS3 during the holidays, and save the boost from the price drop until well into next year. They've probably realised that the Wii is going to be #1 no matter what they do, so maximizing profits for the rest of the year might be a prudent move.

To be fair, even though the X360 is "already below 200k", it's still about 90,000 units per week above this time last year.

I was just checking the charts: at this time last year, MS was only selling around 80-100k units of hardware per week. The lowest week for MS has been 180,000 since late September. That's a huge improvement.

There will be no more price drops this year. The MS already had a price drop/bundle added recently in anticipation of the holidays. Xbox 360 is already cheaper than the PS3, and a price drop will not affect Wii sales at all. Plus, MS actually wants to turn a regular profit for they Xbox division, not just profits in Halo3 quarters. Price drop in spring, at earliest.

Europe/Others: it might be a good idea to do a price cut soon. I'd look at PS3 sales in the next few weeks before making such a decision though. If the spike dies or Sony's decision of killing the 60 GB model turns out to be a big failure, they might not need a price cut to win (or at least not lose by a significant margin) the holiday war in Europe. Remember that this is the PS3's first holiday in Europe, so there are a lot of unknowns here for now.

Japan: They just did a price cut there, so there should be no price cuts until next year.

In general: They should do the minimum amount of price cutting, except as necessary to keep increasing the gap between the 360 and the PS3.