No PS3???????!!!!!!!!  Fcuk profits, give the people what they want!!!

I understand where you are going with this, but you are wrong. These companies claim their 10 year or 5 year plans to appease to the gamers because they feel like the companies will be ther for the long run. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A 10 YEAR PLAN!!!

Well, funny thing, I am about to buy a PS2 soon. Too bad they don't make new games for it anymore, but it has tons of them. Good games. PS3? What for? I already have a 360...

I agree...they would have had to release the PlayStation3 at some point, but it didn't have to be in retaliation to the Xbox 360.

I know I only got an Xbox 360 because Grand Theft Auto IV wasn't going to be released on PlayStation 2, and (being in year 9) didn't exactly have $699AU readily available to spend on a PS3. <$300 was a far better deal!

Xbox 360 is still a little bit better value for money here in Australia - when you can get a 360 Elite plus 5 games for $100 cheaper, well...good thing BluRay found its groove when it did, I honestly believed BluRay would flop even after its victory over HD DVD.

Hey Rol, is it ture Sony lost that much?

I don't think the PS2 would have held off the 360 quite that well - although it would have slowed sales more than PS3, I agree with that.

360 was destined I think to get PC orientated online titles and would have nonetheless got strong sales in US/UK in line with that.

My view with hindsight is that Sony made 2 mistakes:

1 - they wrote of Nintendo (so did MS too I'm sure) and didn't consider them or their new console direction a threat

2 - they overexagerated the threat for the 360 and focused on matching it for specifications, online, etc. seeing MS as their real foe this gen

These led to 3 mistakes pertaining to their direction with the PS3, particularly at launch:

1 - they pushed in too much tech making the price far too high at launch (I know the price was actually good for what you got, but what you got was more than most people wanted then)

2 - they overly focused on mature titles and new IP to so so instead of getting some core franchises out early

3 - they felt sure they could use the success of PS3 to boost BR and never thought BR would in fact, for the first 2 years, actually be an anchor on the console due to the high cost it added to the console

I'd also say that they seriously over-committed to R&D around the Cell and the PS3 architecture in terms of real world benefits.

Sony would have destroyed the 360 had they not overengineered the console anyway. Bluray was a big hit on the device in pricing terms and it delayed the launch, only now 3 years later are there any benefits being shown for it. The Cell was fine but they should have realised they needed a GPU earlier in the design phase and secured a better one than the weaker Nvidia one they got.

In summary, they could have dropped Bluray so they released earlier, they should have gone for a better GPU too. A PS3 released at a cheaper price point with free PSN and more comparable games (thanks to the GPU improvement) would have murdered a 360 swamped in the controversy of RROD. If they kept the HDD as standard in every console then installs would have made disk swapping unecessary too.

The OP's suggestion would have fared well for 2 years then developers would have jumped ship and forced Sony's hand anyway. Its a good job Microsoft cocked up the 360 hardware with RROD or the PS3 would probably have been stillborn though.

slowmo, is the PS3 GPU one of the reasons most multiplatform games end up looking better on the 360?

TEDDIE! <3

The short answer is yes.

Long answer is quite complex and it'll end up with pages of off topic talk but I'll try for you.  The 360 architecture design is still very similar to that of a PC which makes development quite simple.  The PS3 architecture is different because a large amount of its power is contained within the Cell and not the GPU.  Most game engines are built with the PC style balanced architecture in mind so they put the graphics load on the GPU and all other threads such as AI, physics, etc are handled by the CPU.  The problem with this method is on the PS3 you end up with a CPU that isn't being taxed at all and a GPU that is getting bogged down because it cannot process as fast as the 360 or PC versions.  This ends up with sacrifices being made usually to get the PS3 version "good enough" (as happened to the 360 version of FFXIII).

Instead of rewriting game engines to offset graphical work to the SPE's (very costly), most developers save their budgets and compromise the quality of the PS3 version.  Easy ways to increase performance are to drop resolution, reduce texture quality (saves memory bandwidth), reduce AA quality (or disbale it), remove some effects. 

As I said its quite a complex answer to such a simple question and I could probably write pages upon the subject.  If you look at the PS3 exclusives we know the hardware is at least as good, probably more powerful than the 360 as a whole.  If we look at multiplatform games then in general the 360 looks the stronger machine.  Having the 360 as  lead platform usually ends up with the 360 looking noticably better, when the PS3 is lead they look identical or the PS3 marginally better (FFXIII is the big exception here).  I don't like the term lazy devs people use on here as it doesn't take into consideration why developers do not have the tools to improve the PS3 developments.