By the end of this gen, how many pieces of hardware do you think Wii, PS3, 36

[HappySqurriel]

jjseth said:

Non Sequor said:
People predicting that the Wii won't continue its performance seem to be ignoring the fact that Nintendo is in the best position to make a price cut. They can afford to cut the price at any time and when demand falls below supply they can just announce a price cut and they'll be selling out again.

Sony's in much worse shape with no sign of improving. In order to sell anywhere near what the PS2 sold they'll have to get the PS3 under $200, but they're losing money on it at $500. Regardless of what games they release for it, they aren't going to move many units at the current price. Some of you may be surprised to hear this, but $500 is more than some people spend all year on entertainment. Some of these people owned PS2s (once the price got low enough), but you can be sure they won't own PS3s.

 Keep in mind that in the past the magic number was $100, but as the economy grows, and people make more money, they can afford to pay 3-400 for a console.  Of course the higher end won't sell near as many, but I can realistically see the PS3 dropping down below $300 before the end of 2009.   The one thing about having a machine packed with expensive state of the art electronics, is that the price drops rapidly as the cost to manufacture decreases quickly. 

If you assume that the average person gets a 10% raise every year it would be 15 years before a $400 console would be in the same proportionate price range as a $100 console is today. Few people ever recieve 10% raises and the average raise would be between 2% and 3% which would justify a price increase like that sometime between 48 and 72 years.

Overall, the ecconomy is in pretty good shape with some large warts and I can see people willing to pay more for a console today than they were willing to 5 years ago; I think you would find that their limit is still about $50 more than they were willing to pay in the last generation though.