Indeed most people who weren't Nintendo fans thought Wii would be a fad. We just didn't know how big a fad it would be. But it was pretty obvious that once Wii sales started to really dropp off, even before Wii U was launched, that the fad was over before the 8th gen launched. Nintendo failed to recognise the significance of the fast fading Wii and didn't do anything with Wii U to reinvigorate things.

I made a thread about it a few weeks back, it's in the sales forum. But for your convenience here's one link with the price being $719, normal RRP here is $749. http://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/games-gaming/xbox-one/c11905-cxboxone-p1.html  I must apologise for my bad memory though, the discounts are up to $50, not $50 or more. But still discounted units this early on is not encouraging.

LOL at your 3. PS4 is sold out almost everywhere, except it seems the Knack bundles in the UK. Many countries only got 1 shipment in 2013 and that shipment was pre-sold before launch date. We also know that Xb one sales to consumers are well short of shipments because of MS's own PR. 3 million sold to consumers as at 28 Dec, 3.9 million shipped in 2013. So there was ~900,000 unsold units in the retail system. And Sony's PR was a claim of >4 million sold to consumers as at 28 Dec. So the gap according to each company's PR was ~ 1 million on 28 Dec. VGC sell through data has actually been reasonably confirmed by all other publicly available sell through information.

Well if the games keep coming, this will be the case.

I'm guessing you missed the countless threads where the PS4 was sold in most areas WW.  And the fact that Sony had to move some January shipments to December, hence the lack of shipments til mid-January.  So yea, I would say all those consoles were sold.  And MS's own estimates puts 900K One's on shelves, meaning demand dropped quite a bit near the end of Dec.  So yea, VGC is probably close to the real numbers.  And if famousmortimer was correct, they are either overtracking One in the US and/or undertracking the PS4 for Jan.

Threatened? By a dieing company? No. The video gaming industry is pocket change for MS.

Console exchange discounts have been available for years.... People do it on here even when a new generation approaches! How are we taking this article seriously as seasoned gamers?

Some people spend too long in forums, go play some actual games.

Well. Sony and Microsoft's average selling Price is higher than $400 and $500 if you account for the world-wide market, thus by extension, other countries can "subsidise" another to gain more overall marketshare.
For instance, the Playstation 4 is $550 here (The thieves!) and the Xbox One is $600 (Less thieving!)

Thus by extension Microsoft and Sony could afford to drop below the $400 and $500 mark respectively and still end up making an overall profit from the hardware.

Having a dominant device though, is always bad for a consumer, companies get complacant when that happens, which results in less innovation and higher prices for longer.

They may not want to follow Sony that far. 

Most gamers know that Sony came out swinging in the last couple of years with great games while XBOX didn't give any their loyal fans any games to play...they just gave up. Now MS are paying for it because they weren't loyal to their fans, and most of those fans are switching to PS4 because they know SONY will take care of them throughout the whole next gen.

Nintendo is not seen as a part of the console war because they don't directly compete with Sony and Microsoft. Sony and Microsoft compete directly to make the people who will buy the next GTA, Fifa and Call of Duty get it in their console, and not the other one. They compete to make people choose their console and no the other one for the multiplats.

Nintendo is almost like a parallel market, with different games. Their philosophy has always been that consoles should be made of mainly exclusive games, otherwise it just becomes an issue of cheapness and power. Now Sony is beating Microsoft mainly because PS4 is 100 dollars cheaper, and last gen Microsoft grew from 25 million units to 80 million units because PS3 was so expensive in itsa first years.

I agree that's a great business move  on Microsoft's part.. in effort to off set the 100$ difference without having to make a price cut..  i personally believe MS shouldn't just stop at making the offer for just the ps3 trade in, but also x360 and wii,why not it would help  move more unit's overall.. in xb1 favor if you ask me..