Fail again. The PS2's dominance never came from Sony, it came form overwhelming 3rd party support, something no one can ever pull off again. That's why the PS2 was pure luck lol. Sony hasn't been catering to their markets, most of the sequels to their games have flopped lol, because Sony is horrible at making games. The originals didn't sell that well to begin with, so when the sequels sell worse they look horrible. What proof of loyalty do you have if the sequels are underperforming and Sony keeps losing half of their userbase with every gen?

Hey man, I would tweak one thing you wrote above.

Nintendo won the numbers game this generation because it appealed to the largest amount of people.

Sony won the previous two generations because it appealed to the largest amount of people.

I don't think it's fair to say the Wii won because of casual players, and the PS2 won because of "all audiences." The casual market (and again I really don't like that terminology) is the biggest market. They are the people who buy the majority of video game consoles. So if PS2 won it's because a lot of people who are casually interested in video games bought it. It's the same reason the Wii won.

People like you and me are the minority in this equation. For every devoted video game fan on this site, there are 20 people who are only marginally interested in video games. They maybe buy a single system per generation and play only a handful of games. Those are the people who made the PS2 a huge success, and they are the same people who made the Wii a success.

I don't care what you are looking for, and by a small margin. The margin between the 360 and PS3 is small and its taking the PS3 more than 6 years to overcome it lol. When it gets outsold then you will have an argument so try again. They have definitely showed signs of slowing down lol, they are in decline as we speak so fail again. The fact that you actually considered adding them up, is sad to say the least. SOTC will sell horrible like all of Sony's ips so no, I don't want Ninty to waste time catering to a base that put Sony in last. It worked for the 1st playstation, which didn't get beat by a platform w/o any 3rd party support. So that's what Sony should have done, tell me you don't really believe Sony would rather have a failure like the PS3 instead of a console like the PS1 lol. No matter what there will always be complaints, how old are you? No offense you seem to be young, you think if Ninty took one of there developers and made something like SOTC, nobody would complain? Whatever game that developer usually makes would not be made so those fans would complain. Ofcourse SOTC needs a talented developer, so lets say the Zelda team. Zelda which has a bigger fanbase than SOTC(You do know that game would be lucky to get pass 3 million right?) Zelda fans would go crazy. So no, let Sony be Sony and Ninty be Ninty. When they try to be Sony, hardcore gamers show no support, ask the Gamecube, when they try to be Ninty, they win.

Edit: Those graphs are a joke lol, the Wii crossed 1 million in a single week 9 times in its lifetime, while the PS3 could only do it once. Thats where that 30M gap came from and when the PS3 actually catches up, then you will have an argument. Ofcourse it wouldn't matter since by that time the WiiU would be smashing the PS4 and the gap between 3DS and Vita could be as large as 80M.

When the PlayStation home console is at its worst, it loses $5 billion despite getting all the third party support.

When the Nintendo home console is at its worst, it is still profitable despite being shunned by third parties.

Now do the math. If Nintendo had decided to give away GameCubes for free after things went downhill, how many could they have given away, if they ran their business at a $5 billion loss?

$5 billion divided by $100 is 50 million.

Maybe numbers will shut you up for good.

The PS2's versions of Gran Turismo (2 games) sold roughly 26M units combined. The PS versions (2 games) sold roughly 20M. So already an improvement, which contradicts your "The originals didn't sell that well to begin with, so when the sequels sell worse they look horrible."

Then we have the PS3 versoin of GT5 (1 game) that sold roughly 12M combined. I'd say that's roughly loyal. Another GT game and who knows what the total would be.

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus aren't big sellers anyways as that wasn't the point of OP in the first place.

Uncharted, made by the same guys that made Jak & Daxter, as well as Crash Bandicoot a 2 gens prior, sold a total of 15M units on the PS3. For the #3 console, that's a huge feat. Remind me how much the cube sold of its best games??

Lol. The list continues.

The $5 billion loss isn't a cop-out at all. It highlights how strong the PlayStation brand really was this generation. It couldn't operate anywhere close to a profit and it's still stuck in third place. Sony was lucky to get bailed out by third parties.

Wow this much cherry picking speaks for it's self. Where is Infamous, Killzone, Resistance, LBP, and countless more. Did you just add Gran Turismo 5 and its prologue together. Also I love how you just said there was an increase between the PS1's GT to the PS2 GT but failed to mention the drop from the PS2's GT to the PS3's GT. GT3 alone sold more than GT5 and you even had to combine it with its prologue, because hey there definitely isn't any overlap between them. Did you just brag about two GT games on the PS2 selling 26M, NSMBWii did that w/o a sequel to add to it, just think of how much it would have sold lol. The fact that Melee sold more than Uncharted 2 speaks for it's self. Try again.

I kind of disagree. There are people who are marginal gamers like you put it that bought a PS2, but they didn't buy a Wii, because it had nothing that compelled them. That's what OP tries to address. The discrepancy of nearly 50M units between the PS2 and the Wii, as well as the ability for the PS3 and 360 to sell much better than the previous runner ups (GC and XB) by almost 80M is also testament to that.

So I understand the casual term is imperfect, but it goes to show that alot of the people who wanted compelling and evoking content did not buy a Wii and either skipped the generation or bought a PS360. How to name these gamers, I tried to describe them in OP, but haven't found a name. It's not hardcore, because you don't have to be hardcore to like those games. It's not mature because those games don't need to be mature. The games just need to be deep and evoking, like Super Metroid was, like SotC was, like the games that cater to that segment should be, and that is where Nintendo should work on, that is their area of weakness. To fix that will improve their overall game, which is already very good, and it will give them more of an edge over that specific segment.

What name would you suggest? The segment that would prefer Super Metroid over Mario Party?

Get a brain or borrow someone else's, yours is broken. Killzone, Infamous, Resistance, LBP are all birthed on the PS3. All I needed to do was show you how the PS1 and PS2 franchises were still thriving in one form or another (some as spiritual successors due to loss of IP rights), and you were disproven. At that point all you had to do was realize you were wrong and tuck your tail.