Or

So if they released the Ps3 - cell included - more or less as it is now/in 2006 - 20gb/60gb? Or a similar level to the 360, no cell, dvd instead of bluray 20gb/no hdd?

For $299/399? $399/499? 499/599? Or just one SKU?

In 2006? If so - before Wii? And had the 360 launched in Nov 2005? Or was it held back and released later/alongside the ps3? And if so -was their hardware revised, or released as it was in 2005?

2005? If so before or after 360?

Does this mean we also get to judge/speculate on what reactions to market changes Nintendo and/or MS would make? Or are only Sony's actions altered in this reality?

I think that covers the starter questions I would ask to be clarified if changing your scenario from the one previously stated, in order to be able to speculate on events in this parallel reality. If you've ever performed the role of pen & paper RPG DM/GM, you'll know constructing a parallel reality spanning 7 years is more hard work than it looks. If the players are going to be immersed and responsive anyway.

PS3 probably would have won the gen, and the wii would probably have sold a few less consoles but the wii obviously still would have been a huge success. Honestly if the PS3 was $400 in 2005, it may have been the last console for microsoft. If Sony would have just dropped the whole bluray thing, they would have been able to sell so many more systems.
This is all assuming that the PS3 would have been similar to the 360 in power and used DVDs. Lets face it, back in 2005 all things equal most people would have bought a playstation over an xbox. This whole idea that the reason the PS3 is having good legs is because of the power of the system is rubbish. Ever heard of the PS2? that had pretty damn good legs i believe.

would you prefer this outcome in comparison to now? would you be happy if the xbox hadn't been a huge success and only 2 competitors were left?

not saying it's a good thing if that happens.  It just shows what horrible decisions Sony made with the PS3, the $600 price tag goes along with Nintendo using cartridges with the N64 as one of the dumbest decisions ever made. Actually given the massive losses Sony took it is the dumbest decision by far, at least Nintendo never lost money.  It doesn't mean those were bad systems, in fact both those systems are awesome.   

Competition is the best thing for gamers, so i welcome it with open arms.  The more parity the better, and looking at the 3 systems with pretty similar sales i'm very pleased.  

exactly what i think. without strong competition there is only one loser: the gamer. but sadly when reading posts here it comes to my mind that some people are only satisfied if "their" console "wins" which doesn't count in any way - it's the games that count. ok, nowadays a few other things, too, like psn(+) or xbl but really, we buy consoles for games. the situation right now couldn't be better for us - we have 3 strong brands which all had huge success this gen and i hope next-gen we don't lose one competitor.

I don't know when Sony was dominant with PS1 and PS2 we had 2 awesome generations.  It's the developers that make innovation and they always have to compete for sales no matter which platform they go on.  So while I am thankful that Sony had to do stuff like PS+ and lowering their price to compete with MS, I would rather see things like 100 million PS3s and 50 million 360s right now.  I just don't like how microsoft tricks people into thinking their system is cheaper by having a non-existent memory and making you pay to use anything online.  I wouldn't mind a world of just Nintendo and Sony.  Hell it used to just be Nintendo and Sega and everyone seemed happy with their SNES and Genesis.

the market wasn't big enough back then to carry 3 consoles.  We're looking at a gen here with close to 300 million consoles sold, when the SNES and genesis were around it was what?  80 million?

ok but I'm just saying 2 consoles is enough to keep competition going.  I also wouldn't mind Sega replacing Microsoft.  I just wish Microsoft wouldn't focus so much on online and multimedia and offer thier own library of games.  I also hate how they rely on tricking people like with the 4gb, live fees, and making people think COD is only on 360.  I guess it's just the stupidity of people I'm hating on because it's frustrating to see COD sell so much then have an amazing game like Resistance 3 not sell well partially due to Sony not having the dominance it once did.  A world with 100 million Wiis and 100 million PS3s sounds fine to me.

If you can't see how the 360 is making the PS3 a better console than i dont' know what to say to you.  Competition is the lifeblood of the market, and forces the companies to compete for better hardware, software, customer service and exclusives.  They are competing for your dollars, and you choose which one to buy  ased on your tastes.  Like it or not the 4 gb 360 is plenty good enough for a lot of people, especially the casual crowd the 360 is trying to cater to with it.  I think it's funny that you bring up Resistance when even the PS3 crowd is shunning it for COD.  Each Resistance has sold less than the previous one, it's probably a dead series now.  It sounds to me like you are just bitter that the 360 is eating into the PS3 sales because Sony made so many mistakes this gen.

sorry but I saw a much better variety of best sellers last gen.  I don't mind Nintendo doing great they're a company in it for the gamer.  Microsoft on the other hand only entered gaming because they didn't want the other companie's OSs to begin to eb away at their OS market dominance.  They knew online functionality would improve on consoles to the point where people may use them more than PCs and so they acted to protect that market.  I can't blame them but having Sega instead of them, even if Sony were still in third, would be better for the gamer.