I am a self proclaimed fanboy ;) hehe .

No no im just kidding...but sony and playstation is very strong here in South Africa, they kinda made console gaming mainstream in our country, before that i think all we had was cheap chinese knock off brands (could be wrong here). Plus they released games inline with international releases which was great for us. Anyways just thought i should explain my allegience and fanboyism :D

Back to my response! I think if sony launched the ps3 at an affordable price things would have definately been different. To what extent? No1 knows. They could have also released it at the same time the 360 released again this would have probably changed things as well. But they didnt do any of those things. So we will never know what the outcomes would have been. Personally i feel if they launched with an afforadable price and a bit sooner, things would be drastically different. I stil think 360 would have the lead in US tho :) (no where close to the lead they have now)

People often blame Sony for their downfall this gen but most dont seem to credit MS for what they have done.  One of the things i think MS has done is make games that appeal to the US market. In particular gears of war. Gears of war kinda ushered in this generation. I think gears alone made some people immediately loyal to the xbox brand. Not to mention the halo fanbase as well that carried over from the previous gen and then grew  even more this gen.

And yes Sony will most definately have great first party support from the get go but apart from Uncharted i dont see anything that has trully captivated the US audience in Sony's current first party line up. I dont think MS will sit back either and not have an extensive launch line up...unless they go fully for the casual audience :/ but thats a different topic. I think MS will come out strong next gen as well. Maybe not gears, maybe not even halo but they will definately have some new games and franchises releasing, and they will look to theses new games to do exactly what gears and halo did this gen. Theyve already proved they know how to appeal to the US audience.

 But i do feel that its Sony that has more work to be done to regain their status next gen. All in all its gona be a really interesting time and i cant wait! :D

Seece i almost never agree with what you say but this is spot on!  :)

And I'm sure Sony thought it had a loyal fanbase after it released the PS1 and PS2, as well.  Or Nintendo felt that way after releasing the NES.  The truth is only the very hardcore gamer remains loyal to their brand onto the next gen.  Because of what this site offers, we see many here, which can lead one to believe that there are many more than actually exist.  But, ~80-85% of people who bought either system don't really care what brand they have.  Sure, they'll have their preferences this gen, as with any gen, but they aren't loyalists.  They looked at sticker price and the games on the shelves and bought what appealed to them the most.  So, next gen is like a clean slate for them. 

Which is the reason I bring up the launch prices and 1st party games.  I have full confidence that the PS4 and NeXbox are going to be very comparable in terms of power/specs and features.  However, this time so will the prices.  Maybe a $50 difference.  I don't see Sony giving them much more than a 6 month lead.  And 3rd party support will be near identical for at least the first few years, as I doubt MS will want to repeat the same strategy and buy timed exclusives.  So, a lot is going to come down to 1st party exclusives.  Sony has quite a few proven 1st party developers, MS not so much.  I can also see Sony having a few new IP's in the launch window, maybe a few old ones, while MS will probably mostly rely on a new Halo, maybe a Forza.

The PS2 should be over 46M.

PS2 is a shade over 46 million, and won't reach 47 mill in its lifetime. Probably 46.5.

Wii is at 36.28M in U.S atm, and has dropped YoY every year since 2009.

2008 - 10.16M
2009 - 9.58M
2010 - 7.07M
2011 - 2.13M

I imagin the next 4 months will go something like this Sep 200k, Oct 200k, Nov 900k, Dec 1.5 - 1.8M

So around 4.9 - 5.2M for 2011 total. 1.9/2.2M drop yoy, which is less than the 2.5M drop it sufferd from 2010, despite it being more down YoY this year so far (830k) than 2010 over 2009 in the same period (600k). So it could be a lot worse than we imagin.

Anyway that would put end of year Wii figures at 39.1M - 39.4M. Who knows what it'll do in 2012 even with a price cut to $99 early on. The Wii will be even more irrelevent, it'll have zero to little SW, and its successor coming out imminently. It is possible it'll fall just short of PS2 LTD, selling 3.2 mill in 2012, then 1.8 mill in 2013, and then 800k for remainder of its life. Putting it at at just above 45 mill. Then again it could do better than we expect and surpass 46.5 mill. It wont hit 50 mill though.

360 needs to have a steller holiday, and not drop horribly Yoy next year to catch up to either. It hasn't even dropped yoy at all in the U.S since its release in 2005 though, this will be the 6th time its been up YoY in the U.S, so there is no evidence to suggest it's going to drop off hard/flatline.

TBH, the price difference between the 'entry' model PS3 (40g) and the 'premium' 360 model (20g) at launch WAS only ... $100.  Most don't want to remember that, but it's actual and factual.  So that begs the question, exactly WHAT was it that caused so many previous PS2 owners to purchase a 360?  Was it the fact that Gears of War was the only game that TRULY looked and felt 'next gen'?  Was it the forward thinking social features of XBL?  Or was it simply impatient core gamers not wanting to wait for a next gen HD console and purchased 360's before the PS3 launched?

I think it's probably some incalculable combination of all of those along with that immeasurable force known as momentum.  Regardless, this generation proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the next generation is promised to NO ONE.  The reset button will be pressed and we get to do this all over again.  Good times ahead...

You can't skew the comparison in the 360's favor like that by using the entry model for the PS3 and the premium 360 model.  Entry price is the most important.  And the difference was $200.  Now if you want to truly compare apples to apples, you can compare the prices for both premium models, which would still be a difference of $200.  So, while a year headstart did help the 360, the $200 difference was the largest factor in helping the 360 fair so well against the PS3 in the first 2-3 years of its life.

Pachter fail.(3DS)

If the PS3 had launched cheaper than it originally did (by $100) then chances are it wouldn't have had blu-ray, a hard drive as standard on all models, and if they chose the same architecture if might have ended up looking noticeably inferior if they had to scale back on memory or something else.  If that was the case then in my opinion this generation would have played out exactly the same.

As for next generation if they're the same price then likely the specs will be almost the same and it will come down to community and software and in the U.S. the 360 will have an advantage with Xbox Live and Microsoft having deeper pockets than Sony.  You can talk about Sony's 1st party all you want but it's the same 1st party that had very little impact this generation, especially this year.  As for Gears do you really think they're going to end that franchise with GeOW3?

Also in terms of proving yourself isn't it usually the team that came in last that has the most they have to prove? 

I didn't feel like I was skewwing.  I was just comparing the closest models (I actually messed up, the $500 PS3 had a 20g HD just like the Premium 360).  Plus, since we're talking about the PS2 core here, it's a matter of record that the Premium 360 model sold more than the Core (aka, "gimped" version).  I could never find anything to tell which PS3 model was the bigger seller, but those that bought the 20g had the same experience overall as those that bought the 60g.  You can't say that about the Core 360.  I still think it stands as a valid comparison.

In addition, you can't ignore the other factors I mentioned.  It wasn't JUST price.