Retailers are starting to speak up and suggest that Microsoft’s recent price cut has given it a serious edge for the sales lead this holiday season. Some retailers are even suggesting that shortages of the Xbox 360 may even be an issue this holiday season.

The slashing of the price of the Xbox 360 has really put it within the reach of some consumers who had been passing on the latest generation of console systems because they felt that they were previously too expensive. In these cash strapped times, people are looking for long-term entertainment that is relativity cheap and getting to the $200 price point first may have been what Microsoft needed to vault them into first place in sales this holiday season.

Many sources at retailers are telling us that the bigger issue is the fact that all three consoles are targeting different market segments and that might just turn out to be the strength of the Xbox 360 this holiday season.

Blu-ray isn’t dropping in price fast enough and many consumers are happily satisfied with DVD and just don’t see a real need for Blu-ray right now; and this more than anything else may end up hurting the PlayStation 3 sales this holiday season. Nintendo has not done a good enough job in attracting some of the younger hardcore gamers to the Wii with titles that they are getting excited about, which we will predict will hurt them this holiday season.

While all of the consoles have exclusive titles and that will never change, many of the titles that look to be the hot titles this holiday season are Xbox 360 exclusives. This just adds to the balance that Microsoft has been able to strike and retailers are excited to cash in, but at the same time continue to express concern that Microsoft will not be able to have enough consoles available to meet the demand for this holiday season.