Don Mattrick, senior vice-president of Microsoft"s Interactive Entertainment Business, has said he expects the Xbox 360 to secure second place in the current generation console war.

"We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony," Mattrick told Business Week.

He made the comments as Microsoft announced it was slashing the price of all three of its Xbox 360 models in the US, having recently done so in Japan also. As a result of the move, the entry level Xbox 360 Arcade is now priced at Tom Ivan99, making it the cheapest of the current generation of consoles on the market.

However, Mattrick said he was less confident of the Xbox 360 catching this generation’s current market leader, Nintendo’s Wii.

"I"m not at a point where I can say we"re going to beat Nintendo," he said.

On Thursday Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst Jesse Divnich told Edge that Microsoft"s price cuts should have Sony "concerned". While he didn’t doubt the long-term success of Sony’s PS3, he did forecast that "the Xbox 360 will win another holiday season against the PS3 in North America."

Divinch expects a 20-30 percent short-term jump in Xbox 360 unit sales thanks to the price cuts, while Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told us that he thinks the price reduction will "spark an increase of 15-20 percent in unit sales over the next 12 months".

"Nintendo need not worry about Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter," Divnich added. "...Nintendo has so much wiggle room on the Wii’s pricing that they will never be afraid of a competitor trying to use price as a differentiating feature.”