Here's what casual gamers will get hooked on. PRICE & BLU-RAY. That's all there is to it.

The Sega Saturn launched at $399 (equals $550 today) with a half year headstart, the PS3 has already considerably outsold this console's lifetime sales. I did not buy a Nintendo 64 for its CD audio.... The Snes was still extremely popular when the original Playstation launched, there always was good competition.

The Nintendo 64 sold very well in the beginning, if you would narrow your view I think it considerably outperformed PS1 and PS2.

PS3 won't pick up casual en masse because it was designed to fight off the 360. Better graphics, comparible online, similar games - high price.

This left a huge openning for Nintendo to come in and steal all of Sony's casual audience which they smartly realized and capitalized on with the Wii.

The Wii appearing at the Academy Awards is proof of it's mainsteam appeal. PS3 will never have that.

Blu-ray will be increasingly important, and will likely push PS3 over 360 before the end of the generation. But PS3 offers too little to the casual market to capture many sales. People will just buy a blu-ray player, or an upconverting dvd player, or worse, buy a PS3 but hardly ever buy games for it causing it to have a low attach rate.

I do think Blu-Ray movie functionality speaks to more kinds of people for the long run than Wii-mote gaming. If the PS3 can continue to offer the best package they could capitalize on this introducing even more casuals to gaming.

The Sims has been very popular amongst more casual gamers. Home is a bit like this but with more customization and SecondLife like social interactivity with some sparkles of Sony's magic dust on top. I think this could be huge if the word gets around amongst casuals.

Well Blu-ray is making a difference; my friend is gonna sell his XBox 360 that he bought 2 weeks ago so he can get a PS3 with blu-ray.

Go figure: people who like the PS3 think that it will gain casual support, and people who don't like the ps3 think it wont. huh...

I don't know if the ps3 can gain casuals but they have a lot of fun psn titles (however that takes the casual getting on line). I also see some potential with the motion games from the ps3. I have the one thats kinda like lemings except the things move when you move...had some people who were not gamers over and they loved it. Maybe not enough to make people buy the console but lower the price, throw in blu ray and advertise some of these games and casuals will buy it and have something to play on it

1) If the Wii is mostly selling to GC owners, why didn't the GC sell faster at the beginning? The PS2 has been out 7 more years than the Wii. Of course the PS2 has sold more than the Wii has sold so far. And before you say it, the Wii is tracking sales in each region of the PS2, so they selling very similarly.

2) I agree on the first part... but not the second part. Casuals will find games that interest them on the console that they own. And they hardly have enough time to play those games. Why spend another $200 on the PS3 when it gets to that point to play more games that you don't have time for? Some may buy it... but not enough will. That's like asking why didn't more people buy a GC or Xbox, when they had games that we're completely similar to PS2 games (Super Smash Bros comes to mind, don't know if there's anything like that).

3) Just like the industry predictions and outlooks were correct when they said the Wii would be lucky to sell 15 million lifetime, and that the PS3 would be ahead by 2008?

Again, why didn't the GC sell so fast if all these Nintendo fans are buying the Wii? And does that mean the Wii will stop selling in 2 or 3 months because it's sold to all of them? Have you read any of CrazzyMan's threads about Marioboys?

And then it was hit by the worse drought of games ever. Then the PS took off. Yes, the PS didn't do very well at first, because everyone thought that the N64 would do so much better. But once the N64 was released, and 3rd parties realized it wasn't the "winning" consoles, they jumped shipped, and the PS took off. The PS2 had the advantage of coming out first, and having all the support right off the bat, because everyone thought (correctly) that the PS2 was the console of the future (at that time). Imagine if the Wii would have had the support from 3rd parties that the PS2 had when it launched. It's crazy to think about.

Yes, the movie industry is much bigger than the gaming industry. So it's true that the blu-ray speaks to more people than the wiimote may. But unfortunately, at least for 3rd parties, these blu-ray player owners may not buy any games. So Sony will win with blu-ray royalties, but 3rd parties will lose. And when they start losing they jump ship. And we see what happens when they jump ship. That and regular blu-ray players will become cheaper than the PS3 by the time the masses want blu-ray and are ready for it. So they'll end up buying a regular player, and not a PS3.

The Sims became popular because it didn't require massive computer requirements (at least until you added the 20 expansion packs, which require 2 harddrives just for the games), and since most people have computers (no idea about percentages, from a poll of everyone on this site, 100% of people have a computer), it sold really well. Home is similar to The Sims, from what you implied and what I've heard, but people have to buy a PS3 in order to play it. And not many casuals/mainstreams are going to pay $400 for one game, especially since many have already chosen the Wii with WiiSports.

The PS3 will probably grow steadily, and as it comes down in price it's appeal will spread beyond the hardocre. I expect.

There's a danger that, with the wii and 360 taking such significant market shares, the PS3 will be overshadowed until the next generation begins, and is then left behind in the period when it was expected to be most profitable.

Casual pricing might get casuals on PS3. That's a few years away, though...

I have a cousin who is going to buy the PS3 for the Blue-Ray - with the gaming being a bonus. He's owned Dreamcast and other systems in the past. This is despite my trying to convince him to get the 360 :)