Look, if you really believe that's the deciding factor, that price, games, marketing, brand identity, launch timing, none of that have any effect, then that's fine with me.  Personally, until I hear someone say, "no, I don't want that console, it's too powerful," I'll believe that there are many more aspects involved.

Look, if you really believe that's the deciding factor, that price, games, marketing, brand identity, launch timing, none of that have any effect, then that's fine with me.  Personally, until I hear someone say, "no, I don't want that console, it's too powerful," I'll believe that there are many more aspects involved.

I agree. The main deciding factor on a console's fate is not power, but a combination of the above.

Power is nice to have, but coincidence or not, every generation the most powerful console missed one or more of the other aspects. Let' look at the weak points of every most powerful console of its gen:

Master System - didn't come close to NES' third party support.
Neo Geo - insane price, not nearly as much third party support as Genesis and Super NES.
Nintendo 64 - lolcartridges, third party support flocked to PlayStation.
Xbox/Gamecube - late to the market, third party support again all on PlayStation 2.
PlayStation 3 - insane price, late to the market, hugely successful competitor (Wii), shared third party support with Xbox 360, hard to develop for.

Third party support is without a doubt a very strong indicator of who will win a gen. The PS3 is the exception as a console who retained 3rd party support but had far too many other problems (and a too successful competitor on Wii).

Overall I agree with pokoko. I think it is a matter of time until we see a gen won by the most powerful console - it seems it was a matter of luck (or lack of) in the past generations in that the most powerful machine was always plagued by some other huge problem that brought it down.

If the PS4 will break this rule (assuming it remains more powerful than Xbox 720), time will tell.

Saying that the Wii U is technologically inferior to the PS4 isn't stealth trolling.  Depending on your point of view, you'd argue that it's either a statement of fact or straight up trolling.

On Topic: The PS3 had two problems that were related to this which caused it problems early on.

1) It was difficult to program for

2) It was too expensive for the average consumer.

#1 won't be a problem this time since they've gone with more standard PC hardware.  Programming for the PS4, new XBox and PC will be relatively similar this time around.

It all depends on #2.  If they launch with $599 models again, things will not go well.  As people have said, if they launch at $399, they'll be fine.  They *might* be ok at $449, but that could be pushing it.  I don't this it's necessary to go lower - such as $349 or $299 - in the short term.  Not when they'll still be selling the PS3 for $199.

I'm still expecting two launch packages - one at $399 and one at $499.  Bundles will vary depending on the individual retailer.  They will be some Sony packaged  bundles, but some retailers like Best Buy will throw a random game in.