With the holiday season coming up, everyone is talking about console announcements, console hardware and software sales, console price cuts, and most importantly, the console war. And while some –Nintendo - keep a top position and patiently fill the store shelves with Wiis and DSs to make sure there will be no more shortages this year, others – Sony, Microsoft – prepare to fight for the second spot.

But while we’ve been accustomed to seeing the two giants constantly fighting for positions, we need to get used to something completely and unexpectedly new: Sony wants Microsoft to succeed! We’ve got Sony Worldwide Studios’ president Shuhei Yoshida’s interview with Eurogamer to prove it: “I’d really like to see both PS3 and 360 succeed here (Japan) […] What Microsoft is offering and what we are offering are closer, compared to what other platforms are offering.”

Yoshida was referring to the high-definition gaming market which opened up its gates to the Japanese market. And while Japan seems to be a bit slow in adopting the new offerings, the best solution for both Sony and Microsoft is for people here to start embracing it whether on PS3 or Xbox 360 (of course, PS3 over Xbox would probably have to be Yoshida’s personal favorite).

“In terms of realistic-looking graphics and smarter AI, they haven’t really shown the appetite for what this generation of gaming can offer,” Yoshida said, adding that the Japanese gamer continues to prefer Nintendo’s Wii. This is why it is important that new titles coming out on any platform do well in terms of sales.

Sony might want Microsoft to do well of course, but not as a permanent thing, as Yoshida admitted. But it appears that the two consoles could be at peace here as long as the road to high-definition gaming remains somewhat narrow. When possibilities start coming up, it’s only logical for the PS3-Xbox 360 war to start all over again.

So what will you have under the Christmas tree this year - a PS3 or an Xbox? The sales we are going to see this end of the year will depend on the strategy that each console maker adopts, and an important part of that strategy will of course be the price. So far, the ball is in Xbox’s court, with prices that PS3 has not yet managed to match.

As a proof of that, Xbox not only outsold PS3 on the US market in August, according to figures released by NPD Group, but has also kept the lowest price compared to Sony’s PS3, which meant another victorious month in September for Microsoft.

This should be a sign for PS3 to make some price adjustments, perhaps just in time for Santa’s shopping spree, or else, it won’t be hard to guess who will follow Nintendo in sales at the end of the year. As for the Japanese market, Sony and Microsoft will still find Nintendo hard to beat, so Sony whishing the best for the enemy is the equivalent of Sony wishing for things to go smoothly for them.