My room mate has a PS3, and I've watched him play around with the little non-gaming features, the media features, and I'm not that impressed... nothing this computer can't do, so why pay for something you already have?  USB and RGB vga out works wonders with my projector and optical sound card, especially with a laptop.

For that matter, the PS3 doesn't look any better than an XBox 1, really, on his standard TV, which majority of people still have.  It's not that PS3/XBox360 costs a lot, it's that the display does cost a lot.  Wii doesn't need a big, shiney display to take advantage of itself.

That's one of the biggest issue to a lot of people, I think.  Staring at PS3 graphics on his standard TV reminds me of games 5 years ago.   NOT impressive.

 It's not even pre-Halo that's a good measurement.  I find that the people who like Halo 1 over Halo 2 because of the bad practices Halo 2 brought, the screaming headsets, cursing, easier game play, less strategy, etc etc, have the older style appearance.  It's just sad that 'gamers' like that of what you describe here seem to be the target audience because they are the loudest ones who protest when they feel cheated.

Halo 1 gets more play time on monthly average in this household than Halo 2, which collects a lot of dust now.  Even with multiplayer.

I think Microsoft's bad opinions of gamers is what killed their generation's respect.  It's like promoting a virus.

 You are too blind to see a true revolution

You know what - Ive really just realized something  , the PS3 and the 360 are really "kiddie" systems, because they invest in the things the kids love these days. They also invest in an audience that has all day to sit down and play some game for 30-50 hours to finish it. Im a full time college student, and I work full time as well, when I play a game, I want to get to the game, I want to enjoy it. It seems the kiddie crowd, in their rush to prove they are all grown up adopted these big bloated games that look shiny, but have little innovation or little else (outside of graphics and cgi). Where as those of us who have already experienced the same old same old a hundred times over, while still enjoy it occassionally, want to enjoy ourselfs, want to experience new things.

So, PS3/360 kiddie. Yep, makes sense. Atleast I can start working on another playthrough of mass effect over the extended new year weekend.

Which is sad - I don't think PS3 had to compete the way they tried to against XBox360 - it probably didn't need all the shineys to go with it. PS2 did ABSOLUTELY FINE with lagging graphics behind XBox and GameCube. Sony really didn't need to 'beat out' Xbox360 in terms of hardware, let alone making it harder on developers to produce graphical games.

I say, if PS3 let up just a little on hardware that they might be a lot closer to 360 numbers today, instead of being 'on par' time-span-wise.

"Second 400 dollars is not the range of mass market appeal, at it's cheapest, it is still too much."

Because of that I said it just entered mass market appeal. Expect some sale surges when it hits 250. This is the point. Writing them off because Nintendo started with a cheap price and soundly trounced them in the first year is a bit too fast.


" Finally, Nintendo is the only place to go for Nintendo's offerings, but what you find on the PS3 and the 360 is more often then not "not exclusive", with some exceptions."

Its not exclusive to PS3 or 360 but its almost always exclusively not on the Wii. So in the end you have to buy one of the other two to play almost all great games not situated in a mushroom kingdom.

"If the cost is too high for the amount of returns, they will continue to fail "

Again software sales on PS3 and 360 are good. Where do these companies fail? Assassin's, CoD4, Halo, Resistance are all multimillion seller. If anything third-party devs fail on the Wii. Where are all the broke game developers. I see dozens to hundreds of new software titles for PS3, 360 in development. Seems to be profitable after all.

VGChartz Hardware data for the period 07th Jan 2007 to 23rd Dec 2007:

The PS3 will have sold 7.5 Million in 2007 (not 9 Million) and it is plausable that this could be the PS3's best year, and that it won't last 7 years. Most trailing consoles end up selling less systems in their 3rd, 4th and 5th year, the PS3 could follow a similar path and have only sold 30 Million units after 5 years.

 I'm going to step out on a limb here and say most consumers in the broad market don't really want the 360/PS3 style of gaming.  Oh reary?  That means that while Wii may have a lot of exclusive or exclusively control-based games, I think more people in general prefer the Wii-style of games anyway.  I mean, that's what's selling the console, is it not?

I resent the Mushroom Kingdom comment too.... it doesn't make that much sense.  Metroid?  Smash Bros.? Donkey Kong?   F-Zero?  Zelda?  I mean, really now....  I get what you mean, but it seems a little narrow-minded to state what you just did.

And here again we have the idea that graphics - being Mushroom Kingdom/Mario graphics, makes a game stale.  Does it?  Then why does Mario keep selling?  And, why does Mario keep making gaming leaps over the past 25 years?  I don't think Nintendo, or the mass market, really honestly cares that Mario is still Mario.

Call me crazy. 

You are looking at simple numbers, instead you need to be looking at the health of these companies. EA for example has had shrinking profits quarter after quarter. It costs more for them to make the games, they get less returns on their investment.

Further, 400 dollars is not entering mass market appeal. How quick do you think the system will see $250 dollars? They are already bleeding money as is, do you think they can sustain even more loss?

Im not sure if it's against the rules to mention other sites, but check out here
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11760

There is a good example of the profits of Sony/MS/Nintendo. What is most disturbing for Sony is that their games department loss so much money it shrunk their profits overall considerably. EA also suffered losses.

Many companies are seeing declining profits, or suffering losses, they bet on the wrong systems, invested their assets incorrectly and are paying for it.

Keeping those things in mind, you have to realise that what is a multiplatform PS3/360 game can very likely become a multiplatform PS3/360/Wii game. It's all about money, no matter how many millions of this or that they sell.

 Video Game industry productions are highly based on investment companies or previous profits - if a company fails to produce good profits on their 'latest' game then their cash flow for their next  game is considerably lower, and offers less money to pay people to work on it.

I also don't find that thread very helpful, as it shows overall statistics, but not gaming-specific.