Did the Sega saturn have any chance against the playstation 1 in 1996?

Theres your answer.

Money and advertising talks.

And nobody in the gaming world has money to throw around and advertising muscle like microsoft have.

Hum... really bad new :(

I dont think so, Xbox 360 is significantly cheaper, and more mainstream then Playstation 3. Even a price cut wont have that much effect (maybe initially) since MS can simply counter it by slashing the price of more expensive SKU's and further reducing the arcade. Sony had a massive lineup for holidays 2008 and that did not help, especially when it looks like all the consoles will have great games in 2009, so no one will have that much advantage in this area.

And  thats exactly why M$ is on track to beat nintendo too.....wait, what?

Sony's recent comments suggest they aren't interested in outselling the 360 anymore but instead focusing on keeping the brand profitable. This is probably the best course of action for Sony this generation, accept last place and make some money.

Nintendo actually has the best kind of advertising, its called word of mouth.  As long as people keep pushing the Wii, there will be no stopping it.

I agree but let's also mention why Nintendo has word of mouth and the others don't - Nintendo's delivering the right product! 

Wii vs. HD twins is kind of like MP3 players vs. CD players: CD is higher quality and there are lots of recording companies out there who advertise the hell out of CDs, but it doesn't matter because MP3 players are the superior product.  At least in the eyes of the general public...I'm not much of a mainstream user myself (still buy CDs and when I buy an MP3 player it will be anything but iPod and Zune).

Can Sony beat MS this year?  It's possible, but it depends on Sony committing financial suicide to sell the PS3 at the same price as the 360, so I say no.  A string of huge hit games could turn it around too, but I don't see that string of huge hits in the lineup.

Actually, there's one more possibility: a motion controller.  But can Sony produce the right games for such a peripheral without seeming like a lame Wii rip-off?  And can it afford the R&D costs for such a product in it's current financial state?

 A potential wii owner can be of an age anywhere between 3 to 103, babies, kids, grannies, grandads, hell, even people who have never bought a games console in their life can be considered a potential wii owner, can the same be said about HD consoles?

When it comes to HD systems (or consoles that are bought for playing non gimmicky games) microsoft are handing sonys ass to them in the financial and advertising department.

That's true but not always a good thing as I will explain,

Please note, this true* story may upset some viewers....

This old peoples home near us decided to get a Nintendo Wii for the old people to play and socialise (good way to get some minor exercise), things were going great for a few days, the old people were having a great time making clans for wii bowling,

Then one day things got more serious, the old people were "cussing" the competing teams, the final round came along when things went terribly wrong, as one of the old women was about to throw the winning strike an old women from the opposing team threw the wiimote at her head at quite a strong force, the wiimote hit the women on the head, she fell back into the rest of her team,

Cutting a long story short, the whole team had to go to hospital, two had broken hips, one had a cracked skull from the wiimote and the other two forgot where they were and were never seen again,

Very sad and shows why old people should be supervised at all times on the wii......

I'm sure Sony will cut prices down in order to keep competition up with Microsoft so i think yes because without competition there really aint much business