This ps4 at 250 would have killed x1 of the gate. Made ninty rush nx, break all records and bleed Money like crazy.

The PS4. Its just so much more powerful than the Wii. And with 3rd party support like GTA5... the PS4 would have done very well.

It should have been a lot closer but without sales dropping in the 4-5 year on the market.

It is funny if you think about the fact that they made the same kind of loss with PS3. Think about how much PS3 would have sold with $399 hardware priced at $250. Especially if it hade launched earlier i don't think there would have been a Xbox One.

We also have to factor in the Wii's legendary-level shortages for its first 2 years or so.

Which Nintendo had a long time to correct, but basically didn't, the sales just dropped and they had no shortages anymore.

It's slightly annoying when someone poses a purely hypothetical question for fun and discussion and some people will comment "omg financial suicide for Sony! They would never do that!" well DUH it would be financial suicide, and DUH they would not actually do it. Hence the 'hypothetical' question. It's not real. Have fun with it!!

My take... I think Wii Sports pushed the Wii... 399 was a sweet price point for the PS4 and so pretty much anyone who wants one, has one. I think a cheaper price would get a few more to the casuals who didn't wanna pay $400 on a console, but without a Wii Sports equal, it wouldn't match the Wii exactly..

What's scary is that the PS4 has been right on the heels of the Wii at a much higher price, (apparently) no games, no Wii Sports, and all kinds of other factors that you would think would have derailed the PS4 compared to the Wii. The PS4 is just in a league all it's own.. and it's Lifetime sales will far surpass the Wii... that fad died pretty quickly and everyone I knew had a Wii and most of them forgot they had it after a few years. Obviously those people weren't gamers, but most casuals who picked up a Wii weren't hardcore gamers either.

I think people were saying the Wii was a more impressive feat over the PS4`s sales due to a few circumstances. 1st off, the Wii was a new idea in games, introducing the wiimote using motion controls to play games and it aimed to bring casuals in too, with games such as the Wii series. It changed how we played games. It was so impactful, that Sony and MS followed behing, with the move and kinect.

2nd, this was something that likely no one expected to be a major success. Nintendo was falling fast while the PS brand was building a large presence in games. Nintendo was likely losing relevance too. And people doubted the Wii would succeed with this new control scheme, but it blew everyone`s expectations and was a massive success.

3rd, the Wii was the weakest console in terms of power, while its competitors, especially the 360, could provide much more in visuals and power. The Wii had some good competition and still came on top in the end, being sold out for months after release.

Compare that to the PS4`s success, and it doesn`t seem that impressive in comparison. The sales numbers are still impressive though.

The one thing the PS4 must deal with that the PS3 and PS2 didn't is aging hardware. Both the PS2 and PS3 had top of the line hardware upon their releases, whereas the PS4 was a mid-end machine upon its release. That coupled with many advancements in graphics hardware during this generation will cut its life short by an earlier successor compared to the PS3. So while the PS4 should have a longer, healthier life-span than the Wii, I can't see it having a PS3 lifespan unless they can drop the price to below what the PS3 is at now with the respective time-frame (which is certainly possible.). I think Wii and PS4 will end more or less similar in sales, with an advantage to the PS4 by up to 15 mil over Wii (which it will get after PS5 releases.) Regardless the PlayStation brand should still be quite renowned. 

@ OP One thing to consider is profitability. The 100 million Wii's will probably have made Nintendo five-ten times more profit than Sony will make from 100-125 million  PS4's. 

Actually, it was way more than that.  They lost $241.35 for every 60g, and $306.85 for the smaller one.  However, I think it would ultimately be less costly than the PS3, if they were to do a $250 model.  They've moved away from the Cell and XRD Ram, which were two new technologies at the time, and helped increase the costs on the machine along with the BR drive.  Now that Blu Ray is an industry standard technology, it's no longer even remotely as expensive as it once was.  The processor and RAM they use for the machines (the 8g of DDR5, and the 256mb of DDR3) are both widely used tech at the moment, so prices aren't high.  Frankly, I doubt it's possible for the PS4 to lose as much as the Ps3 did per unit at a $250 price point.