Well, bundling Kinect 2.0 with x3ox could mean that they're cutting back on power... Or taking huge loses. But having advertisement on their dashboard is pretty sick... I find it so strange that people put up with that!! I would never buy something like that. That really reeks greedy shit.

God... where do I start? lol There's a lot to say, I won't go too in-depth though.

I guess first of all the pricing - for them and for us. They'll keep R&D costs minimal and the hardware will be sensible, sold to consumers for a very reasonable price point. They'll have a more focused first-party line-up with at least 3 system-sellers (GOW, Uncharted, GT), they've invested in technology that'll likely be prevalent in the future (Gaikai) so they'll definitely make use of that. They've got a number of FPs working on PS4 games for sure, so they're going to avoid a lackluster software lineup at launch, something PS3 suffered from. Marketing seems to be a lot better since the re-branding from spiderman font, creepy baby playstation 3 to keven butler's PS3... the better marketing should transition over to PS4... 

It baffles me how many people play this up.

The dash is designed to make things easier for you to use. Which its far easier than Ps3 Linux. I use both. I guarantee Its quicker scrolling on 3600 to get where you need.

But their is 1 advert in 1 box per section. All the rest does is tell you whats new for you in each section that you can get right now.

Hell whhen you turn on the 360 your taking to the home metro tab. Where you dont have to move a single stick or button and te first thing your highlighted on is Play the game in your disc drive. Right there. Just press A. Right there. First thing. All the surrounding metro tiles have new DLC or new XLA game. Which you can click on straight away to take you to buy it. No fuss. On the games tab is your games, Games Marketplace, and some sales tabs which are shortcuts to tat months XBLA sales DLC or full games.

Its all about the user. The movie tab as new films etc. No random Quilted toilet paper adverts. Its noting like IOS which is littered with irrelevant advertising during apps. 360 dashboard is all about Xbox 360 and playing games. Its very well done.

THIS! Agreed.

There was not a price cut last quarter.  

Agreed with both statements lol.

Only thing I would add is Micrososft is probably the only one in the position to also kill Sony if they wanted to by releasing a powerful consoel and selling for a huge loss. That is assuming they will bait Sony into playing the same game Micrososft does,

What Sony needs to do is work out what Sony wants to do and nto what Micrososft is doing.

Look at N64 and gamecube as examples. Both consoles sold pretty shit, hwoever they where profitable for Nintendo. At the end of the day does it matter if you sell 100million consoles or 30million consoles? as long as you profit that is what should matter.

I kinda suspect this -- Microsoft sees blood in the water and they are going to go for the kill. If it means losing an extra $20-$50/unit for a year or two, they can afford it easily. They have Sony exactly where they want them, this is what they've waited for since they entered the game business.

I also think MS will try to undercut Sony by starting bidding wars on exclusive content for the first 1-2 years of the next-gen cycle. They know Sony cannot afford to keep trying to match them with dollars.

Beyond that -- I think they want this bad. They know they screwed up in the cell phone/tablet market by being so late and letting Apple and Android gain so much traction. But control of the living room -- the next big thing (even Steve Jobs was obsessing over it) ... it's there's for the taking. And is Microsoft going to share with Sony? Probably not. They will want to consolidate that full PS3 + 360 userbase under one banner -- their own.

You still haven't answered how sales that are in decline year on year, for 2 years, are flourishing really either.

You used a lot of very imprecise wording in your article and opinion and then asked what people thought.  My thoughts are that you're the very opposite of someone who is overly pessimistic of Sony's position, you're actually overly optimistic and ignoring some basic facts to try and paint a rosier picture.  I actually went overboard in my criticism of your thread because I wanted to provide more balance.  I think I answered your point in your previous email by saying that I still don't see how these sales of the PS3 can be seen as flourishing. 

If we accept your viewpoint that it was the strong brand that saved the PS3 then do you accept that the people running Sony largely had little to do with the ultimate outcome outside of pushing on the price front.  That's not a query but just a simple observation that if the brand isn't as strong anymore then Sony did well to recover sales, if it is still very strong then the sales are expected regardless of managment choices.  This is how I don't get this opinion, it's widely accepted Sony changed their company ethos throughout the PS3's lifespan so it makes perfect sense to summarise there has been damage to the brand and some clever marketing and aggressive pricing/marketing recovered sales.  People used to play Playstation, the term "play Xbox" is ever more present proving that while one brand has strengthed it's image, the other has weakened somewhat.

Onto software where I admittedly was very harsh.  The 3 "Home Consoles" Sony have released have all been drastically different in their software ethos.  The PS1 had moderate firsty part support from Sony but relied heavily upon third party support drawn to the console due to low licensingcosts compared to Nintendo and Sega and the fact the console was comparatively easier to develop for than the Saturn.  The PS2 introduced the now famous Sony moneyhatting practice that Microsoft copied at the start of this generation.  They paid thrid parties a lot of money to ensure the PS2 got many exclusives from third parties.  The PS3 has seen Sony realise they couldn't go toe to toe with Microsoft on paying for exclusivity so they have created more internal teams and focused on building a core of 2nd party studios.  Now we are getting towards the end of the generation of course they have started closing down studios as more titles aren't required to drive console sales given the remaining third party support both the 360 and PS3 receive. 

The mian point of my block of text above is that Sony haven't used this strategy as a sign of health or strength, they literally had no choice but to create their own core group of studio's or they would have been in serious trouble.  We may find (evidence suggests this could be true) that Microsoft may start funding more studios for the coming next generation as they will need to change their stratgey as money hatting just didn't work this generation. 

I would argue even now that your original statement is saying Sony aren't in trouble, the fact you're saying it doesn't after the occasion doesn't change the words you wrote or the intent of the OP as a whole.  Everything the OP is positive and nothing is painting even the slightest negative picture at present which hardly suggests you believed they were in any trouble.  Call me a strawman if you like, I'm calling you out for changing your stance to suit your poorly worded OP.

I wouldn't know; I haven't connected my (well, strictly speaking it's my baby bros) xbox to the internet. It's weird how two people can have two very different experience of the same thing... One says it's littered with ads, and the second says there's almost nothing... As long as they keep it to a minimum that don't interfere with the gaming experience I guess it's all good =)

To both Cobretti and Soundwave (love that name btw!): I think x3ox will fail relatively speaking if they try to end Sony by making a beast of a console. I don't mean to say that x3ox won't sell if they go for power next gen, they just won't get the same amount support as Sony and Nintendo from 3rd parties. I've been arguing for quite some time that if x3ox is a beast we'll have reversed Wii situation next gen. WiiU and PS4 will be quite similar in power and therefore get the same 3rd party support. This would mean that x3ox will get ports that don't utilize the systems full power.

And why it's gonna play out like this is very simple: developing games these days costs shit loads. Developers gonna want to sell as many copies as possible to recover their expenses and won't bother to take advantage of the full power of x3ox because it'll cost hell of a lot.

I hope my thoughts are getting through as I intend them to :p