The 360 would have to sell on the upper limit to reach this number. Despite the games and the pricecut which is sure to come I still doubt it.

Yes you are. That's a good guess though.  Just, maybe not on this site!

42 million by Oct. I dont think they'll sell nearly as much as they sold in 3 months that they did in the entire year last year.

Well last year Oct - Dec theys hipped 5.5 million. You don't think with Natal + whatever else they have left they could perhaps raise that to 7 mill?

can ps3 hit 45 million?

50 million shipped? Shouldn't be too hard. Actually sold? Very, very highly unlikely. Even with Natal being treated as a relaunch you can't really compare it to the PS3 slim. The slim came not even 3 years into the consoles lifespan and it was the first time it was available at a mass market price. By the time Natal comes out in the fall the console will be 5 years old and it will have had an entry price point of $200 for 2 years. With Natal being treated as a legitimate relaunch I can't see it getting a price cut before then because I'm assuming they'll want to bundle it with all 360s going forward, which will essentially act as a price hike unless they wait to cut the price simultaneously with the Natal launch.

Plus if the rumors are to believed I don't think the elite model will be around for much longer. The super elite is probably going to be cut to $300 soon and we'll probably see a 320 gig or maybe 500 gig model introduced at $350 or $400. I've said it before but I still think Microsoft is still losing money on the arcade model considering the price hike in the UK so I find a price cut for that model unlikely.

On top of that it must be considered how much money they're spending on Natal development and also they're latest initiative in Japan. The way things are currently looking unless this latest push is highly successful the 360 is going to be a fair bit down YOY in that region alone. I realize it's a bit early but on top of that the current trend world wide points towards a steady YOY decline. FFXIII might give enough boost to break even for quarter 1 but I think q2 and q3 are both going to be down YOY.

I can't see Reach giving a very big lift considering the bump that ODST gave was barely even noticeable. So that leaves Natal to reenergize sales and make up the difference during the holiday. Now I won't rule out Natal becoming a huge game changer but it's going to need a truly killer app to pull it off. The concerns that some devs have raised about latency issues leave me a little sceptical. Finally we still don't know if Natal will even be compatable with the Arcade. Realistically speaking, best case scenario I can see is the 360 being slightly up YOY, maybe 500k. 50 million is just too far out there.

Keep in mind that if Natal is a success, it won't be an immediate success, and its true potential won't be shown until 2011, when we'll see if the device can provide a sustained lift for the 360.

The Wii wasn't the megahit that it is now the day it came out. The day it came out many were skeptical, and many others didn't even know what it was. It had a great first week because it was the launch of a new console, but that's all it had going for it at the time. It wasn't until Wii Sports got into people's homes, and that word of mouth started to spread, that the Wii took off and had incredible sales throughout the entirety of 2007.

With Natal, it'll probably have a somewhat slow launch, since it is not riding on the back of a new console or anything of the sort. What will make it a success is some sort of Wii Sports like killer-app upon release. It'll sell decently this holiday, with that killer-app garnering great word of mouth, and then if it's a true success, things will take off throughout 2011.

It'll need to time to grow. Things won't happen immediately. This isn't like Halo 3, or any other typical system seller that spikes a console's sales immediately. This is like Mario Kart Wii, and the increase in sales won't happen in a day.

it could happen..its a big year for microsoft

I think it all depends on what natal can do for microsoft but i believe like 46 million sold