When does Sony reach the point of no return in Japan?

[sgstair]

Steve 3.2: For some people, this race will be "too early to call" until well after the future generation takes over... The console world is rather very unforgiving, I think the outcome is already clear. Yes, Sony really does require a reason for people to buy their machine. Any reason will do really, they don't seem to have one at the moment- and they don't seem to realize that might be their problem. There isn't enough overlap in the individual markets they're targeting to justify the purchase for most peope (would you buy a combination wood lathe, photocopier, and assault rifle? I don't think many people would...) The PS3 isn't going to drop in price notably... It'd be suicide, on a level even beyond what they're already doing. This option has been beaten to death, it's not any more viable now than when the first person suggested the PS3 would price-drop like "all the other consoles have" I don't think HD is really much of a driving force, or that it will be for anything but a very small portion of the population (the vast majority of people are seriously too stupid or ignorant to connect the cables properly, or perhaps even recognize the difference between SD and HD), though I do agree that downloadable content could take off in a big way. The wii has never aspired to be a media device though, and people generally recognize that when they buy it. (Or I'd think it's pretty obvious anyway.) And, with cable / satellite networks increasingly pushing their DVR boxes, that seems like a more likely conduit for the aforementioned downloadable content than a game console, at least for most people. As such, I highly doubt there will be any sort of notable upgrade to the Wii during it's lifetime You make several very good points; I just don't entirely agree....