How M$ could win, at least in NA.

[SaviorX]

Alby_da_Wolf said:

rocketpig said:
In some ways, MS has already "won". Thanks to Nintendo, Sony is seriously weakened throughout the world. Now MS can concentrate on profit and try to expand their market in every region, which appears to be happening. The 360 should finish with no less than 35-40m sales, up considerably from the Xbox and its 25m userbase.

MS will also be launching first again next generation, giving them the ability to correct their mistakes from this generation and try to expand their market again.

In the short term, though, there is little to be gained from them throwing money at the problem to weaken an already weak Sony when they can sit back and try to turn a profit on the 360. No matter what they do, the PS3 will probably end up passing the 360 in WW sales anyway.

You don't take into account that the sacrifices Sony did to make PS3 ahead of its times will pay in the long term giving the console a longer life, while OTOH Nintendo will have to release a Wii2 with HD as soon as HD TVs will become commonplace: obviously, given the huge success of Wii and the low cost the necessary components will have in a few years, Nintendo won't be hurted at all by this, but nevertheless Sony will have all the time it needs to build a long term success for PS3 and we know that game developers appreciate long term thinking, as it lets them acquire experience on the platform better and make it pay longer. This is also one of the reasons, besides higher profitability, that makes Sony keep on producing PS2s, it says to developers "our platforms have a long life and make your investments on them pay for more years", while MS killing XBox 1 after only three years and a half was a big slap on their face, besides on its own.

 I doubt the "Wii2" will be released when HDTVs are more common. You mentioned the PS2 still selling. Don't you think the Wii will sell similarly to the PS2? No one is certain as to when HDTV will be cheap and accessible, as for my opinion, probably a few months after TV goes digital in February 2009.