In most engineering fields there is the concept of gold plated requirements and it is always seen as a bad thing ... The general principle is that you can continue to add or enhance features of a system in an attempt to build the perfect system, but you soon get to the point where the added cost is far smaller than the added value to the consumer.
Both Microsoft and Sony are guilty of gold plating the requirements on their home consoles. By now it should be clear that Sony and Microsoft could have released their console with a dual core PowerPC processor (probably a modified PowerPC 970MP), a modest gpu (Geforce 6 or Radeon x800 range), DVD drive, small ammount of built in flash (2GB) and optional hard drive and sell it for $300 and the average consumer would be happier for it.
