Regardless of how many choose to trade in, I don't know why it would be a sad thing. They get to play their online shooty-games soon, instead of having to hang onto PR statements from a company with one of the worst PR departments ever.

I think people underestimate how easy it is for people to move to a different format or different edition. We live in an age where something you buy in the media will have another version of it within a few months. Standard edition turns into game of the year edition, films turn into extended editions or whatever. There is obviously a huge market for those things or they would not be released. If they can get people to buy the same item again with a few mins extra footage or a new add-on then why wouldn't people buy it on a different format? I think for most normal people the content is what interests you, not the thing that plays that content.

That's why Mass Effect PS3 sold so much. 

It's not easy to jump ship because if that were true, the 360 would be in third place right now when we spent two years talking about how crappy their hardware was, but people stood by it and bought multiple versions. 

Bound to happen.  Question is are we talking a volume of units enough to matter much?  I'd guess probably not.

If 1000 people a week more than usual were swapping PS3s for 360s that would be irrelivent unless it was a sustained effect given in the UK alone we're talking about a tiny fraction of much larger install bases.

Really, for this to be a worry you'd need to be looking at many thousands swapping a week - and that seems very unlikly to be the case.

That's why Mass Effect PS3 sold so much. 

It's not easy to jump ship because if that were true, the 360 would be in third place right now when we spent two years talking about how crappy their hardware was, but people stood by it and bought multiple versions. 

Not quite sure why you mentioned Mass Effect on PS3? There are loads of examples of products coming out first on one format and then selling more on a different one later.

I had rrod on my first 360. They replaced it in a week. If they took 6 weeks then i'd have asked for my money back. The difference with the rrod is that it sucks if you are the one affected by it. All those that don't have it are not affected and thus why would they be talking about how crappy their hardware was? With the PSN issue it is different as everyone has it and will continue to have it. It isn't as simple as ringing them up and they fix it for you. As i said before i think the longer it goes on the more this will happen. Patience only lasts so long.

Not quite sure why you mentioned Mass Effect on PS3? There are loads of examples of products coming out first on one format and then selling more on a different one later.

I had rrod on my first 360. They replaced it in a week. If they took 6 weeks then i'd have asked for my money back. The difference with the rrod is that it sucks if you are the one affected by it. All those that don't have it are not affected and thus why would they be talking about how crappy their hardware was? With the PSN issue it is different as everyone has it and will continue to have it. It isn't as simple as ringing them up and they fix it for you. As i said before i think the longer it goes on the more this will happen. Patience only lasts so long.