If Sony made a sub $399 PS3 at launch- would it have outsold the PS2 and force MS out of gaming?

[Dodece]

@S.T.A.G.E

Let us be very clear about one thing in your last statement. The hardware being profitable doesn't necessarily mean that the division itself will be profitable. The studios can lose Sony money, R&D can lose Sony money, Acquisitions can lose Sony money, and new Hardware can lose Sony money. The PS3 no long loss leading may be beneficial to Sony, but it isn't the whole story. For that matter a ten year life span isn't a foregone conclusion either. At least in the sense you are probably thinking about. The profit that far out may be meager, or non existent. If the hardware is selling poorly in year nine, and the same holds for software. Then Sony may indeed be forced to cut losses by selling both at losses just to get them out the door.

Sony can espouse a ten year plan all it wants to, but the market will dictate whether that time frame will be a real gold mine for Sony, or a mine that has been totally played out. One can mean that Sony makes money, and the other means that Sony spends more money then is being made. Sony doesn't dictate the market anymore, and so they have no control over what effect the pricing of others will have. You shouldn't think of this tail end belonging solely to Sony. There could be more competition there then you might expect. Not just newer models being more price competitive then what happened in previous generations, but current models from competitors selling at a deep discount.

@topic

Let me point something out on this topic that kind of got overlooked. The PS3 launched with motion control. It was all but entirely ignored by the media and consumers. When it was mentioned it was usually a underhanded insult to Sony for trying to rip Nintendo off. Regardless without Sony putting read software development behind the feature it never gained any traction. Nintendo did that with its motion control, and if Move were there, and it was to move consoles. Then Sony would have had to do the same. The fly in that ointment is that Sony probably couldn't have matched Nintendo with its stable, and in trying to do so they would have likely forfeited a lot of the high end games that Sony enthusiasts wanted.

I wonder how well Sony enthusiasts would have handled not having games like GT5, Metal Gear Solid, Resistance, and Final Fantasy. When those games weren't made, or became Xbox exclusives, because that would have been the only console on the market to handle the visual fidelity they require. I remember one thing distinctly about that first year, and that was the PS3 sold on hardware alone. Entirely in line with the big dick philosophy. People who bought the machine. Did so for technological glory. Take away the glory, and the bleeding fucking edge, and a lot of those people would have bought a 360 if capabilities really mattered to them, or a Wii if they just wanted to be hip.