But the number of gamers that plays ps brand is way less than the number of people that use other Sony products, though, right?

One thing to consider is that the European lauch has kind of prevented us from seeing just how poorly the PS3 really is doing. If you take away the first 6 weeks of the North American and Japanesse market (for combined launch and christmas demand) and the first 4 weeks of European sales for launch demand the PS3 has sold (roughly) 1 Million units since it launched; at the same time weekly sales have steadily dropped on a wordwide basis. http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS3&reg1=Japan&cons2=PS3&reg2=America&cons3=PS3&reg3=Total+Other&align=1&weekly=1

If Sony doesn't act in a timely fashion the PS3 could be dead by the end of 2008 ... trying to keep the PS3 alive for 4 to 5 years to encourage users to eventually buy your PS4 would be a costly and pointless battle.

If Sony ends the PS3 prematurely even if it doesn't pick up in sales and switches to PS4, the PS4 will be dead at birth.

They are not doing it, PS3 is here to stay and it will be here longer than 360 (MS will start next generation again) and Wii (Wii HD will come out some time in the next 3 years).

there are something you underestimate,

the fact that PS3/Xbox360 are definitively different than Wii !
there is no way to compare them

1/ The wii is by her price and "fun aspect, able to open the market to new consumers (the whole population in fact). Xbox360/PS3 cannot.

==> Wii owner are, in part, people thtat would never buy a console PS3 or Xbox360. PS3/Xbox360 compete on another nich than the Wii : gamers.
competition between PS3 and Xbox360 is extreme
BUT
competition between Wii and PS3/Xbox360 is lower

2/ the Combo potential,
for the same reason, wii is cheaper and possede a special gaming style

==> the classical gamers (PS2GamecubeXbox owners) are used classical game with classical control. That does not mean they dont want innovation, that just means that the "classical gaming" from the past generation was good and, for some game, continue to be appreciated.
Lof of people want to play to immersive game with great graphism
It doesn't mean that they will not buy the wii, it means that they will want to buy the PS3 or Xbox360 after the Wii, to be abble to play to ALL the game they want

I could have talked about the restrective game on the Wii (mario/metroid/donkeykong etc ..) but E3 will maybe show third party game coming on the Wii (since it sells very well ...)

To conclude, I think nothing is done and even Sony's PS3 is not dead yet
Even if people like the wii, buy the wii, there is still a huge communauty (wii owners or not) that are looking for some amazing (at least graphically) game coming on PS3/Xbox360.

ckmlb: that's why I said they'd have to re-invent the PS brand. It wouldn't be the PlayStation 4, it would be the Sony Game-O-Matic. Or something. Not the Game-O-Matic, that sounds stupid, but it wouldn't be a PS.

Also: why do you think Nintendo will pull the Wii in 3 years? Remember, despite Neo Geo, the SNES sold well into the mid-90's.

@libellule: Since the majority of the Wii users are casual gamers (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just saying this as an assumption since so many people refer it that way), I think they will just stick with the Wii. The others are people who don't have a lot of money and don't see the value in another purchase or people that have enough money and do/do not see the value in another purchase. Those that don't a lot of money (like me) and those that don't see the value in another purchase will just stick with only the Wii. The rest will probably get a PS3/Xbox360

ckmlb said: (Wii HD will come out some time in the next 3 years).

What makes you that, after the most spectacular comeback in the history of gaming, Nintendo would suddenly become that stupid? 

A HD version of the Wii would be against  the point of making a cheaper, more accesible console without all the fancy smancy HD graffiks that less than a third of people would ever use. The most optimistic estimates of HD penetration are saying around 50% of families in the US would have a HDTV by 2011, and it would likely be even lower than that in Japan and Europe. Even worse, games made for the HD Wii would probably be incompatible with the standard Wii, or at least look very bad.

They're definitely making some sort of a Wii+, as the leading console of each generation tends to get at least one makeover, but it definitely won't have any unnecessary HD crap.

 

libellude and tiachopvutru: I don't think most Wii owners are people wouldn't ever buy another console, or even casual gamers yet. It's still so new and hard to find that most people who have it are gamer geeks like us who saw it on the internet, and just had to get one. =P

The Wii will definitely get vast amounts of owners from the not yet gaming part of the population, but already most "hardcore" gamers are converting as well. 

Parokki said: ckmlb said: (Wii HD will come out some time in the next 3 years). What makes you that, after the most spectacular comeback in the history of gaming, Nintendo would suddenly become that stupid? A HD version of the Wii would be against the point of making a cheaper, more accesible console without all the fancy smancy HD graffiks that less than a third of people would ever use. The most optimistic estimates of HD penetration are saying around 50% of families in the US would have a HDTV by 2011, and it would likely be even lower than that in Japan and Europe. Even worse, games made for the HD Wii would probably be incompatible with the standard Wii, or at least look very bad. They're definitely making some sort of a Wii+, as the leading console of each generation tends to get at least one makeover, but it definitely won't have any unnecessary HD crap.   libellude and tiachopvutru: I don't think most Wii owners are people wouldn't ever buy another console, or even casual gamers yet. It's still so new and hard to find that most people who have it are gamer geeks like us who saw it on the internet, and just had to get one. =P The Wii will definitely get vast amounts of owners from the not yet gaming part of the population, but already most "hardcore" gamers are converting as well.

Not at all. By that time, the product will be released at an accessible price. More expensive than the current Wii but cheap enough to sell well.

Nintendo is gonna emulate Apple now. Rereleasing the same thing over and over again with redesigns and improvements.

It's not stupid at all, it will keep the product from getting old. Just like the DS was remade into DS lite, Wii will have an HD version released at a time when HD penetration will also be significantly higher than now and it's cheaper to make an 'HD console'.

The DS Lite was a remodelled version with the same games, but smaller, superior battery life etc. Adding something like HD would mean that either very few games would support it, or games for it wouldn't work on the normal Wii. That's not what we call a remake, and that's damn sure not what Nintendo is after.

Miyamoto or Iwata (can't remember which) has publicly stated that the next Nintendo home console will probably support HD, and it almost certainly will, but a remake after a few years would have a stupidity rating of over 599.

ckmlb said: Not at all. By that time, the product will be released at an accessible price. More expensive than the current Wii but cheap enough to sell well. Nintendo is gonna emulate Apple now. Rereleasing the same thing over and over again with redesigns and improvements. It's not stupid at all, it will keep the product from getting old. Just like the DS was remade into DS lite, Wii will have an HD version released at a time when HD penetration will also be significantly higher than now and it's cheaper to make an 'HD console'.

Except (of course) that the DS Lite is simply a change in the form factor of the DS and Nintendo has not changed the functionality of the system; when the DS Lite came out it would have been cheaper for Nintendo to move to a higher resolution screen and a more powerful processor to compete with the PSP on power but they didn't because it was pointless.

There seems to be this underlying assumption that HD penetration will impact sales of the consoles but can anyone demonstrate that HDTV owners are buying more PS3 or XBox 360 systems than Wii systems?