In the latest industry sales preview report from prediction market the simExchange looking at the month of February, analyst Jesse Divnich said that Microsoft's Xbox 360 is expected to edge out the PS3 285,000 units to the PS3's 270,000. The battle over the next few months, however, is predicted to remain fairly even.

"This stalemate between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 is expected to continue well into April with the prediction market expecting the PS3 to outsell the Xbox 360 320,000 units to 315,000 units in March and a reversal in April with the Xbox 360 outselling the PS3 386,000 units to 371,000 units, respectively," said Divnich.

While Microsoft and Sony continue to duke it out, Nintendo sits atop its perch with 450,000 units of the Wii and DS expected to sell in February. This trend is expected to continue as well: "...the prediction market expects the Wii to maintain its home console winning streak with unit sales expected to be 612,000 units and 462,000 units for March and April, respectively."

February overall is expected to be a great month with software sales of $591 million, which would represent a 34 percent increase. Capcom's Devil May Cry 4 is expected to lead the pack with nearly 800K sold across PS3 and Xbox 360. Divnich said Xbox 360 is predicted to sell significantly more, though, with 489K copies of the game versus 303K on the PS3.

2008 is already shaping up to be a great year and March and April should really kick the industry into high gear, as simExchange is predicting huge results for GTA IV. "[February] continues the industry's long trend of double digit increases and the prediction market does not expect this to slow down anytime soon with March and April expected to be 26% and 73% growth over last year, respectively. It should be noted that April's large year-over-year increase can be contributed to Grand Theft Auto IV, which the prediction market expects it will sell over 18 million units in Global Lifetime Sales," said Divnich.