Seriously?  I had no idea Blu-ray was doing that horribly.  I mean, I know it wasn't great but.... yikes.

im not denying that the ps3 is an amazing system. i actually jumped ship from microsoft to sony this gen because of all the awesome games and media features the ps3 had but come on if the price was $400 from the beginning then i think sony might have been at least in second place right now.

I think that the price of the PSPgo and Move show they haven't. A 2 player Move Nav setup is way to expensive for the casual crowd. $210 for the starter kit an extra move 2 navs(people dont want to akwardly play with the DS3) is fucking insane. If they are trying to take the Wii market(which they for the most part are trying to do) how do they think it looks to have a $210 initial setup(assuming there is a PS3 in the house) vs $260(or $270 if they want WM ). Im not saying the tech is not worth that much to manufacture, I dont know, but its a terrible value in the eyes of the customer they are trying to court. 

yeah, i got mine in 2008. refurbished launch model. hehe

Even if SONY made no mistakes with the development of the PS3 and despite the US600 price which is the psychologically no go zone for Game Consoles because. you have to acknowledge that the initial Marketing was fail due to Arrogance of the marketers at SONY in 2005-2008. some people in the marketing department at SONY also played Russian Roulette with the PS3 and Blu-Ray that's why a lot of the initial marketing was presenting the PS3 was a Blu-Ray player NOT AS A GAMES MACHINE FIRST AND FOREMOST before all else if Blu-Ray had failed the PS3 would have failed.

the PS1 was a Games Machine that could play music CD's the PS2 was a Games Machine that could DVD's the PS3 was initially like a Blu-Ray Player that could Play Games. you also have t remember that the CD tech and DVD Tech in 1994 with PS1 and DVD in 2000 with the PS2 at that point were mature Tech at lest 6 years old not brand new like Blu-Ray was in 2005.

if the PS3 had been US$500 at most at lounch with the marketing stratagy SONY might have made it all work and helping to keep the Developer/Publisher and community support at the same numbers as the PS1 & PS2  

just look at the SNK NEOGEO US600 AES which was the most powerful Games Console in the world in the 16bit (essentially the PS3 of the 16bit era) due to it being 100% identical to the NEOGEO MVS Arcade Machine to allow for Arcade Perfect Ports which failed.   

Just as a final note I have always been onbored 100% with the PlayStation brand with PS1,PS2 and PS3 and PSP 100 and PSP 3000. I imported my Japanese 60GB PS3 model in December 2006 and I love everything about it. I just can see were SONY went wrong with the PS3 before and at launch that is all. 

I think they're going to be or at least should be wary of releasing an expensive handheld after the utter failure of the PSPGo (and price wasn't the only factor there and they know that).  I'm guessing they are in the process of finalizing the specs and will finalize them when they see how the 3DS does at its stupid high price.

If the 3DS does well, we'll see a beefy PSP2 at a high price, if it doesn't do well, we'll see an upgraded PSP at a ~$200-ish price.

He also mentioned the PSP, wich followed the usual Sony strategy of launching with a new media format, with big initial third party support etc, it made mistakes that prevoius competitors to Nintendo had made, but it wasn't ridiculously priced, and it had the PS2 style of games in its library. On paper, with the conventional wisdom of the PS1/2 era, it should have won, but it didn't.

Basically, I think what he said about the Wii sounds more like skill to me. I must have taken not only luck, but true skill to pull off something like the Wii. However, you're right about MS, they were lucky that htre western market had grown, and that their competitor had a weak launch, but anyway. The points he made about the PS1/2 succes were absolutely valid, what if Nintendo wouldn't have made the N64 cartridge based, then what would Sony have done without FFVII? If Sega knew what they were doing and built a reasonably priced, 3D focused, and developer friendly games console (with a true Sonic game!), would Sony have had a chance at getting RE and Tomb Raider from the Saturn?

I think if this gen is interresting, I believe next gen is going to be at least twice as interresting, or more. I mean, it's basically impossible to try and figure out how the console makers will make their moves next gen.

The PSP isn't exactly a failure though. It didn't win... But it still sold over 60 Million units. While its competitor is going on to become the best selling gaming system ever. Surpassing the PS2. Sony just ignored it towards its later years and refuse to cut the price.

Skill/Luck... Both combined. It takes skill to come up with the games that utilize the motion control, but pure luck that they pulled it off with the whole "Blue Ocean" thing. Luck that they could produce an underpowered, under-featured machine.

As for the PS1, I agree that a lot of luck was in it... But not just luck. Excellent decisions from Sony were made at the time of the machine. It's kinda like Nintendo right now. A mix of both luck and skill/decisions. And the PS1 had much more than just FFVII, RE and Tomb Raider. (Who's to say they wouldn't have got them anyway eventually?)

And I agree about next gen!

The PSP2 at $200 - No way in hell is that happening. They sold the PSP Go for $250. That's really a minimum price for the PSP2; $300 is more likely. If the 3DS costs $250, I really don't see Sony undershooting it in terms of launch price and hardware capability. It could still do decently at $250, but the 3DS will decimate it whatever happens.

The PS4 at $400 or less - Almost certainly. Sony isn't going to push more technology with the PS4. It just didn't pay off with the PS3. The format victory wasn't enough to justify the billions that went down the drain, and the massive PR hit and image hit that Sony took. It took a good three years to even partially redeem the PlayStation image, and Sony aren't going to let it be tarnished again. Since the PS3 will probably be $200 or so by PS4 launch, it's not unreasonable to expect a significantly more powerful console (two Cells), though still using Blu-Ray, to only cost $400. I don't see it being less, though.

I'm will not agree on assumptions, and opinions.

Is numbers all what you're concern about?