Funky Papa said:
Don't forget that MS' marketing is totally absent when not being utterly incompetent.
PS3 could retail for 1000 and it'd still beat the Xbox 360 for a landslide.
I mentioned this before and it's funny that not many more people realised this.
Sony has been building the PlayStation brand since 1995. The PSone established itself as the platform of choice for most gamers, proving wrong all the people who claimed it was doomed (that is, mostly everybody) trying to fight against the two colossus in the industry, Sega and Nintendo. But the system got good games and great marketing campaigns and that showed in the results.
After the success of this system and its successor, people know that if they buy a PlayStation they're going to get everything they're looking for in a console. They trust the brand as until now it has delivered most things promised and people don't forget that.
That's why PS3 doesn't even need advertising, its name says it all.
But what about the Xbox? The Xbox wasn't well marketed, nobody really cared about the system so there was no precedent to back up Xbox360's launch. They had to start from zero. But this time around the console's marketing is just as bad as Xbox's. Or even worse. That can't be good.
My prediction for Europe:
#1 PS3 (if they drop the price soon enough, else beware Nintendo's watching!)
#2 Wii (NDS effect part 2? If they manage that with a low price point they may give Sony a hard time)
#3 Xbox360 ('the shooters machine,' like playstation but not playstation...)