It would have been HD, but would not have all those exotic components. It would be similar to an xbox 360, possibly weaker.

ps2/ps1 butfucked the competiton and still to this day has the greatest games library of any console ever, so no, as in the ps3 would probalby be even better than it is now

Turkish was banned from GAF

Never said there was anything to debate or that I approved of its creation, just stating a point.

Next gen is gonna be so interesting. I dont know why but I just have this feeling that WiiU will perform the same as 3DS in the West. The Nextbox to be media centered, W8, apps and all those things. PS4 to be more of a traditional console.

Ultimatly this could be the self destruction of the gaming industry, no unity, games needed to be optimized for each console hardware and controller, costing them more money, forcing more studios to go bankrupt. Smartphone/tablet danger. Iminnent danger right there.

So basically you're asking "What if the PS3 never used the Cell processor?"

Because there wasn't much exotic in the PS3 other than the Cell, XDR memory, and Blu-Ray.

In a hypothetical where Sony engineers didn't get a boner over technology, I would say a Cell-less PS3 would have dominated.  The reason there were no games for the PS3 early in the life of this gen was because development for the Cell was challenging at best. 

It took Sony a year before they had an IDE that developers could use and code samples on how to do things.  They also would have wasted less time and money with the GPU allowing for a better GPU than was was initially installed.

I don't think Sony would have forced Microsoft out of the market, however I also don't think the Xbox 360 would have captured as much of the market as it did.  Also the HD market would have become far more competitive, far faster. 

I don't think the Move controller, even if Sony did have it ready for shipment in 2006, would have had an impact unless the games were there for it.  Sony has yet to try and target the casual market like both Nintendo and Microsoft have with their motion control schemes.  So I think you'd still be wondering what to do with the funky dildo.

The games would be there, we would be playing them with the deal dough controller.

Now lets imagine the doomsday scenerio of the sub $399 ps3

Had sony made a $399 ps3 with move, it could very well have been ever so slightly more powerful than the nintendo wii. There is no way it would have been near the performance of the 360 considering how the $600 ps3 isn't much more powerful than the 360 and this one is not only $200 cheaper but comes with a move bundle. It wouldn't have attracted any of the "nonegamers" that the wii did because the library would have been fairly empty of quality family titles. Crash and Spyro all but died in the ps2 era.

Meanwhile all the alienated core gamers would have flocked the the xbox despite the RROD fiasco because it was the only console that stuck to traditional controls, especially considering its early game library was much better than the ps3's (back then when titles like bioshock, oblivion, mass effect, dead rising, lost planet, etc. were exclusive) Those games and their sequels would end up never getting ported to the ps3 which has a different control scheme and isn't as powerful. Alot of the shockingly good ps3 exclusives would have ended up being lame, because the main sticking point to most of them is the incredible graphics and cinematics which they would no longer have.

So in conclusion. PS3 sales would have started off slightly better due to the cheap price, but never picked up steam like the ps3 currently did because the system wouldn't do casual better than the wii nor core better than the 360. It ends up selling much less than the current ps3 will. Games in general also suffer massively as the only competent developers of motion controlled games has proven to be nintendo and sony. Almost all third party games end up sucking for both those systems and the 360 ends up getting fewer third party games as well because developers can't just port them to the ps3 causing most current classics to end up being unprofitable. Console sales began declining much sooner, and next gen would have started 2 years ago had the ps3 launched at sub $399.

If they kept it simple, they would have dominated. But were entering the 'What if' category again.

It wouldn't have forced MS out of business though. They would have done something less monopolistic and more competitive.

But in a space of 5-6 years.. I would say Sony would have dominated in the first 3 years but im very uncertain of the rest.

Lol. Howcome?