Jesse Divnich, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research

How each platform will fare this holiday season: The only console I am concerned about is the PS3. While our industry will be resilient through this economic downturn, there will be, however, some casualties. And because consumers generally become more price-sensitive during these periods, I foresee a lot of consumers who may have wanted to purchase a PS3 this season to hold off until the economy recovers or until Sony drops the PS3's price.

In other words, I do not think the Xbox 360 will steal too many potential PS3 owners this holiday season.

Recent data has indicated that the Xbox 360 price cut in September had little effect on PS3 sales, which could be a positive indicator that the difference in price between the two systems will do little to influence would-be PS3 owners to become potential Xbox 360 owners this holiday season.

I do not see any negative impact on the other major systems this holiday season. Among next-generation home and portable consoles, we expect a 15 percent increase in units sold compared to last year. This, of course, is mostly due to the Nintendo Wii, which we forecast will sell in upwards of 55 percent more units than last holiday season.

Titles which will be hits, and which will be misses:

I do not have any major concerns with all the high-profile titles this holiday season: Dead Space, Call of Duty: World at War, Far Cry 2, LittleBigPlanet, Fallout 3, Resistance 2, Gears of War 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2, Fable 2, Prince of Persia. And any other AAA title will likely meet or beat the market's expectations.

Sony/Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet

If any cuts are made out of a gamer's holiday budget, it will be those titles that they could do without: games like Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which is an awesome game with great branding qualities. However, it simply does not stack up against the large list of AAA titles this holiday season.

Others include: Need for Speed Undercover (which has become a stale brand as of late), Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and any other title that squeaks by with quality scores below 80 percent.

As consumers become more judicious with their discretionary income this holiday season, quality scores will likely have a bigger weight on a gamer's purchasing decision than in previous holidays.

How the industry will fare this holiday season:

Depending on whom you talk to, the last mini-recession was in 2001. Some say March 2001 through November 2001; others say November 2001 through November 2002.

Nonetheless, both periods showed software growth of [over] 5 percent and 25 percent, respectively. While the underlying mechanics of our current economic crisis is different from seven years ago, I still feel the video game industry is in great shape.

I will start to worry about the health of our industry when soccer moms, who would be the first to cut their gaming budget, stop buying 500,000 Wii Fits every month.