Every single successive Sony hardware has been a monstrous upgrade over its predacessor (PS1 to PS2 to PS3, and PSP to Vita). 

The "barely upgrade your hardware from the existing gen and throw in a controller gizmo" isn't going to work for Sony. That's not what their fanbase wants. 

Heck, it probably won't even work for Nintendo this gen (Wiimote was a once in every 10-20 years type of phenomenon IMO that's fizzled out the last few years, the Wii U tablet won't have the same impact). 

In the long run, the PS3 did OK for starting at $600. It probably still will get to 100 million. If PS4 starts at $450 (basic)/$499 (premium) and launches alongside the 720 rather than a year behind, it's already got two things up on the PS3 as far as I see it. 

No. Neither Microsoft or Sony will launch their consoles that expensive. Even if Microsoft launches at a low price at big loses, the PS3 will have to follow that pricing to stay competitive otherwise they will lose the next general for sure.

*shrug*. True. But competitor's hardware prior to psp was outclassing their systems. That is why i said they were never known for strong hardware. But yeah they still had strong enough hardware for the time. I suppose the better term would have been 'future proofing' less then ps3.

For nintendo they will get away with it. People focus so much on power/controls etc they ignore what nintendo has that sega didn't. Their franchises will sustain them. The success of wii was not entirely because of some 'gimmick'. Smash bros, mario kart, zelda, pokemon, wii party games (and to a lesser extent donkey and metroid) contributed greatly to wii's success. I recall Iwata saying months ago mario 3d land had sold over 5 million units.

Pachter (nintendo's biggest critic) has even acknowledged their franchises will carry them to profit. Certainly the unique control method helps but their franchises are hugely successful.

The GameCube (and N64) had Mario, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Zelda, and Pokemon too.

Granted Nintendo has probably gotten smarter at utilizing nostalgia by going back to 2D Mario and DKC, but they've also milked Mario awfully hard the last few years. I don't see NSMB2 selling as well as NSMB or NSMB U doing as well as NSMB Wii did.

The Wii sold largely on the "wow, it's so funny watching Uncle Tom try to play Wii Sports! It's totally different from normal video games ... and oh yeah I guess I can play some Mario Kart on this too, nice" type rationale IMO. 

lol I know its true. But even if wii u sells half as bad as wii did then its still successful. For gamecube it was still very profitable for them. The only problem was it lost marketshare due to being too late. Nintendo is the only company that can claim they made it to a sixth system consistently making profits. Virtual boy was intended to be a handheld. Sony may be able to claim that but even if microsoft get that far they can't say that because from what I know they didn't make a penny on xbox.

Nsmb2 is continuing to sell well so we'll see how that goes. They may be 'milking' mario as a franchise but they are very different games. Paper mario isn't new mario bros like mario galaxy isn't mario sunshine. They are all totally different ventures if you ignore nsmb as a franchise.

I don't see them as milking Mario.  They just like to launch Mario games close to launch and they've launched 2 systems recently so there ya go

I would argue that Nintendo's biggest advantage is that the industry is focusing on fewer styles of games in fewer genres leaving an ever-growing hole that Nintendo is happy to fill. In the previous generation, Sony, Microsoft and third party developers producing HD games completely ignored local multi-player and stopped producing family friendly titles for these systems; and Nintendo capitalized by selling hundreds of millions of copies of local multi-player or family friendly titles.

If Sony and Microsoft's consoles have a similar shrinking of styles of games (and gameplay) in the upcomming generation that they had with the previous generation Nintendo may be able to expand their market further

Not a very good deal, it would be a waste of bandwidth really.

joking aside that is a dumb idea.  If you're going to give away something for free make it a game or PS+ subsciption.  This is a console not a cable box (although I realize the lines are being blurred.