Consoles have often lived and died by the exclusives that the manufacturers have secured for them, but that era is now coming to an end. One universal console may be nowhere nearer to happening, but it looks as though the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii will be sharing more games in the future than ever before.

Grand Theft Auto IV broke all sorts of sales records when it was released back in April. But the figures so far could just be the beginning as the game is still to be released on PS3 and Xbox 360 in Japan, and on the PC worldwide.

What happens when your product suddenly starts selling in much greater numbers that you are used to? Why you sell out of course, everyone knows that. It’s just that I didn’t expect it to ever happen to the Xbox 360… in Japan. Oh my.

The NPD sales figures for the month of July came out on Thursday, and they showed the Wii still massively ahead of the other home consoles, while the PS3 managed to sneak a win against the Xbox 360. But if you read the press releases from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, you’d be hard pressed to know who actually came out on top - apparently, all three are doing fine.

I never thought I’d be able to write that headline, but it’s happened: the Xbox 360 has demolished the PS3 in sales figures over the past week. The question now is how long the Microsoft console can continue this upward sales trend - is it going to be for one week only?

I personally think this is one of the most exciting generations we’ve ever had in the games industry. One of the main reasons for this is that we are still yet to have a clear winner in the home console sales department. So where will we be in 2011? Chris Deering thinks he knows.

While the official NPD data for sales in the U.S. isn’t released until Thursday, the analysts have come out early as usual and given their predictions for how consoles sales will stack up. There are two intriguing twists this month, with the Xbox 360 expected to leapfrog the PS3, and the Wii showing the first signs of a possible sales decline.

Microsoft has always struggled in Japan, with the original Xbox completely failing to even come close to the sales figures boasted by the PS2, and then the Xbox 360 also failing to really make headway against Sony’s PS3 or Nintendo’s Wii. But things could be changing, as the release of the overtly Japanese game Tales Of Vesperia has prompted queues in Tokyo, and sales of the Xbox 360 to rise for the fourth consecutive week.

Japan is the spiritual home of video gaming, which means what happens there can directly influence the industry around the world. At the moment, it seems the Wii is still smashing the PS3, the Xbox 360 is dead, and the PSP is starting to sell again while the DS loses momentum.

EA recently released their financial statement and there is a surprising turn of events on the sheet. Currently the PS3 is shown to be selling much more software than any of the other consoles including the PS2.