Joystiq

Firing off big-headed predictions is just part of the business, but when Xbox 360 group product manager Aaron Greenberg told Next-Gen that Microsoft expects to have "at least seven titles that will each sell over a million units" this holiday, maybe he wasn't being so bold -- just optimistic. "I don't think any other platform will even come close to that," Greenberg concluded. He's right. But can Xbox 360?

Let's add it up: Halo 3, yes, of course. Madden too. That's two. By year's end, BioShock also will have had plenty of time to reach the million-sold mark; and Microsoft is counting on its other big exclusive, Mass Effect, to get there too (though in considerably less time). That's four. Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty 4, and Assassin's Creed are the three other most likelies to bring the tally to seven, but even Rock Band, The Simpsons, Orange Box, skate, Tony Hawk, PGR4, Need for Speed ProStreet, or an NBA game could move enough units -- are we missing any?

If Microsoft can win over consumers with its exclusives (and perhaps the newly proposed family plan), then Xbox 360 will also take the lion's share of multiplatform game sales, which could, remarkably, produce something like 7 different platinum-selling games during a loosely-defined holiday season. But Sony has challenged with competitively priced PlayStation 3 SKUs and will manage to produce its own lineup of exclusives in Heavenly Sword, Warhawk, Ratchet, and Uncharted, plus Haze, and hopefully, if only temporarily, UT3. Of course, there's also Wii and Mario, a pair that could easily be the one-stop-shop solution for holiday gift buyers.

So were these bold words from Microsoft? No, but the goal ain't no cakewalk neither.