Mmyeah nice but it won't happen. They're probably gonna struggle with Sony for second place. Neither's ever gonna catch Wii anymore. Also, both Nintendo and Sony have 3 regions where their consoles sell well (well, relatively, in Sony's case..). MS lacks Japan.

You get +1.  You are right, it looks futile now, but I'm just one of those people who don't like to give up, lol.  So I'll just say it's highly unlikely rather than impossible.  Also, right about the Wii.  Greatness doesn't equal sales.  This would explain all the Dreamcast love, for one.

i dont think the ps3 and 360 will beat the wii

...don't get me started on the dreamcast please... :(

man, the stuff you are smoking must be reeeeeal gooood.

i still think the ps3 will match the sales of wii by the end of this gen and 360 is 3rd thats easy to me.

Win...some might say it's already won, since it's going to compete much better than the original xbox, and bring MS gaming consoles into the black, over the lifetime of the system. Here's an important thing to remember, success of MS in gaming mean something competely different from success by Sony or Nintendo. MS is a software maker that dabbles in electronics, while sony and nintendo have these as there core business units.  At this point, with over 17 million sold, I'm pretty sure they are happy to-date.  If the 360 can sell 40-50 million, they will be even happier, since it will dovetail nicely into the next iteration of Xbox, which I'm sure will be backward compatiable to aviod some of the turmoil this gen's transistion.

PS is not a Core anything of Sony.... and im waiting for this exact announsment from microsoft in the future....

what is this the special olimpics? MEDALS FOR EVERYONE!

If MS did both, they'd still end up way in third place.

XBL is used by a fraction of all Xbox 360 owners. I recall MS bragging that XBL was used by 6 million unique consoles, Xbox and Xbox 360 included, after the original Xbox sold ~24 million and the 360 sold ~8 million. XBL may be a selling point for many prospective owners, but not the majority of prospective owners.

A single SKU would decrease revenue and sales, which is exactly what MS is trying to avoid with the 3-SKU strategy. The way the strategy works now, most people want the premium and will pay $350 for it (US prices). However, if you're too cheap to get the premium or don't care about the hard drive and accessories, you can get the Wii-priced Arcade at $280. And if you feel like paying MS more money, you can get the Elite at $450, but it's a total rip off to get a $3 HDMI cable, black paint and extra hard drive space.

However, people think the elite offers some other intangible -- such as increased reliability -- which it does not, and the Elite tends to sell fairly well. This is very good for MS who makes at least $85 more profit on the Elite compared to the Premium.

With 3 SKUs, MS is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It was a sacrifice for the 360 as a platform, since the drive isn't standard, but MS was willing to cripple the platform in that way to get additional adoption.

Playstation is very much CORE to Sony's business, since I'd rather take the CEO (that means chief executive officer, and his name is Howard Springer and he's like in charge of the company, and he's like in Japan, and interested in making money for share holders) word on it than yours. That was why Sony pushed bluray into the PS3, and the intent was to make this the center of the media experience. BTW, what's Sony core business, in your expert opinion?

 Btw, here's my source:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001806571

"Hard news -- like a firm launch date for Sony's much-anticipated PlayStation 3 gaming device -- took a decided back seat as Springer talked up the "four pillars" of Sony's road map: e-entertainment, digital cinema, higher definition and PlayStation."