Sony's empire strikes back.

I going to go on record as saying that I believe the PS3 will surpass the 360 next year. It won't be early next year, but I do feel that the 360 won't have the best holiday season.

Here are some of the factors that I think will play a role in how this will happen:

1) The PS3 is stablizing around 230k sales mark worldwide. Which is more than double what it was selling on average through the year before the price drop. It's maintained itself even during the weeks of little released content. First week sales of the PS3 Slim were 550k. After a month and a half on the market the Slim is staying around the 230k range. That's before the onslaught of games releasing like Uncharted 2, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Tekken 6, Modern Warfare 2, Assassin's Creed and Final Fantast XIII (in Japan).

2) The first half of 2010 is going to be the strongest line-ups any platform has or will have ever. God of War III, MAG, White Knight Chronicles (NA and EU), Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII (NA and EU), The Last Guardian and PlayStation Sphere (rumored name of the motion controller) will help the PS3 maintain the huge sales that it will no doubt get over the holiday 2009 season. PS3 sales could be above 28 million by the time 2009 ends.

3) The major franchise that helped make the PS2 do successful will have been finally released on the PS3 in early 2010. Which will allow those companies like Polyphony Digital and Sony Santa Monica to focus on either new IP's or the next games in the franchise they have created. Plus with most of Sony's developers having finally released one game on the PS3, most of the hard work is done. They won't have to completely start over from scratch. They can if they want to, but they won't have to. Which is help in getting even more exclusive first party games out in a faster fashion.