Here's a theoretical situation for the release of the next gen.

Wii2 - late 2011/Early 2012

720 Early 2012

PS4 Late 2012

Which fairly closely mimicks the start of the Wii gen, with Nintendo launching a bit earlier.

Furthermore, we are assuming that the Wii2 and 720 will mimick the Wii and 360 in games lineup, target audience, feature priorities and power relative to what is around. Now lets assume the PS4 mimicks the PS3 in being very expensive, but making up for it with it's value, as it seems may happen from http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=126943. It will of course be a huge jump in power over the PS3, perhaps designed for 1080p 60 fps in 3D, and its games don't display well on 2D televisions.

Lets say the prices of all of them are about the same as their predecessors, adjusting for inflation

Wii2 - $300

720 $400/450

PS4 $700

What do you reckon would happen?

P.S. Take all the info in the OP as assumptions, I am not asking you if you think this will occur, I am asking what it would lead to if it did.

I hope they learned their lesson like Nintendo did after losing two straight Gen.

why does the playstation go up 100, but the xbox maybe, stays the same?

If we're playing hypthotheticals you're basically putting the ps3 in an aweful situation (because that's what ps3's launch was).

And the wii2 and the xbox 720 in the same situation as before.

I'd predict xbox would win, because I predict the wii effect has died off somewhat. But I also predicted the wii would fail. But lord knows the wii chases after me and I won one.

I hope this wasmt derived from that other thread... its kinda of a dumb thread.

Your asking people consider something that just wont happen for the hell of it.

what do you you think would happen?

If what you say in your OP would happen...

PS4 would sell less than 25 Million units.

It would have the PS brand name which would push it a whole lot at the start and it would live off of Xbox ports, but the whole "its games don't display well on 2D televisions" thing would ultimately kill it off

If this happened, I would expect Nintendo and Microsoft to see moderate sales increases at the expense of Sony; and for Sony to fall into a distant third place with people discussing whether they were going to be pushed out of the market in the following generation.

If that was the case then the PS brand would likely lose all respect it has. But that wouldn't happen, I mean come on $700 at launch?! haha the only reason it was so expensive for the PS3 was because Blu-Ray was a new technology and the Blu-Ray drive itself cost close to $800, the whole PS3 cost about $1000 to make so they were actually doing us a favor and selling at a near $400 loss.

And Sony is going to stick to Blu-Ray at least at the time being there doesn't seem to be any need for an upgrade. The Blu-Ray drive has decreased in price drastically since then and you can now buy a Blu-Ray player for $99 so I'm assuming the drive is around $70.

So what I'm saying is at most the PS4 will cost $399, And I expect Xbox 720 to go for the same, maybe Premium selling at $399 and Core $349. With the Wii 2 probably launching at $249. I wouldn't worry about inflation affecting us in the next year, maybe by next decade it will start to show, but its not a short term problem.

The ps3 was delayed and expensive because of the new blu-ray / hdmi technology. The hdmi 1.3 specs weren't finalized yet and there was a shortage of blue laser diodes. That won't be an issue for the ps4. What tech do you think they'll put in the ps4 to get to that price?

To be fair, that happened this generation