Hrm... if it launched without a BR drive, it would be in second place, though it and the 360 would be pretty much neck-and-neck. Its lead is kept by peoples' familiarity with the Playstation brand, despite the cheaper 360 pricing. Which brings me to the price of the PS3: it would have launched at $399 (£249 / ¥44800 / €299), and had its 1 price cut to $299 (£199 / ¥34800 / €249).
However, Sony as a corporation would still be in a similar boat. Yes, their gaming division would be better, but I think the battle with HDDVD would either still be going on, or had both declared losers. (There was far too much movie studio support on BR for HDDVD to just win.) If the battle was still going on, the profits from the gaming division would be used in fighting the hi-def war, or if it were over, the electronics department would have an even larger loss to post. This is the way I think it would have gone, too- public disinterest would cause both formats to fail. I won't claim that the PS3 did nothing for the BR format as is, but some electronics companies could see the PS3 in the same light as Toshiba's players: why make our own, if there's a subsidized player on the market?
So either way, the discussions on Sony being doomed would still be here. *sighs*
-dunno001
-On a quest for the truly perfect game; I don't think it exists...
