At this point I'm pretty sure a company's 3rd home console is cursed. Look at Nintendo, with their first two systems they ruled the gaming market and held a steady first place even with competition from sega. But then the N64 arrived and they fell to a distant second, and completly losing 3rd parties in the process. And then there's Sega, they may not have been first with the Genesis and Mastersystem but they stayed alived and had some great support. But the Saturn came and it was a massive disaster for the company causing them to release their 4th console much earlier than planned. Finally there's Sony, they dominated the games industry with the PS1 and 2. No-one even came close to them. And the the PS3 came and though it has been successful in the last few years, it pushed Sony to 3rd place all while losing them billions of dollars. Now it's Microsoft's turn. Will they finally break the curse, or will their 3rd console be a massive failure?

They will, I have no doubt :)

yes, you put forth a convincing argument.
does anyone know how well sega's 3rd console performed?

nah, they will be fine.

Not sure, it kind of reminds me of the madden curse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden_NFL

Segas 3rd console was there most successful

The Madden curse is because EA is cursed. Microsoft should be fine!

I think they'll hit some trouble. Not because of a curse, but because of the decisions of both MS and Sony. Sony is coming out in full force this year. They seem to be making all the right decisions when it comes to the PS4. Easy to develop on HW, launching the same year as the NeXbox (as opposed to a year or more late), and a cheaper to make and sell HW. I think Sony is going to be a force to be reckoned with in EU and Japan.

MS, on the other hand, seems to be taking a few missteps. It's obvious they are focusing more on their device being an all-in-one entertainment device, something I think many core gamers are going to reject. I also believe core gamers are going to be turned off by how much they are continuing to focus on the Kinect. And while I don't 100% believe they will have an online requirement, something tells me they are going to be cracking down on used games. If these play out to be true, and since the PS4 will be available for around the same price, I can see Sony winning back quite a few of the core gamers it lost to the 360.

So, I don't see the NeXbox being a complete flop or anything. But, I don't see it being a close race between it and the PS4.

But EA and Respawn are supposedly making an exclusive game for Microsoft. Don't you get it? It's all connected!

Nope, Sega's Saturn was the thrid Sega home console and it was quite bad outside of Japan. The most succesful Sega console was the Sega Genesis (2nd console).

On topic: I don't believe in curses. The PS3 is doing too well to be considered 'cursed'.