Are you serious?

No, just no. 

 For what the thread creator was saying, I don't see why not...

I don't know about "lunacy"... perhaps a bit cocky though.  (Has Sony ever been accused of that?)

But your point is well taken.  However, being "extremely succesful" does not happen by accident... it takes quite a bit to get there.  Sony and Nintendo have both proven that they can be successful... very successful. 

I think the numbers in this post show two different ways to have success.

 ... I don't know, but I think I understand what Sony's strategy is and it doesn't appear as though it is going to fail to me.  As everyone keeps pointing out, price is a huge factor in sales.  The PS3 was built in 2006... it will only continue to go down in price.  I think this will make it more and more competitive over time.  It is definitely a capable machine, I'm not sure how great a leap something could make in the next 3-5 years that would end up being as cheap as a PS3 then.  And then there's the task of getting people to buy a new console... again.

You're talking like none of this has ever happened before. Every console has always gotten cheaper over time. Everyone has bought new consoles every 5 or so years over again. There's nothing in these two facts that gives the PS3 any kind of inherent advantage over any other system.

 Correct.  You stated a fact.

(And I, for one, feel no emotional outrage over you stating that fact.) 

Another fact is the following:

Tracking video game console sales since Nov. '05 (360 launch), Sony has put the most consoles in living rooms (38,251,602), followed by Nintendo (24,750,455) in second, and Microsoft (19,101,320)third. 

Apparently this is a controvertial fact...

If anyone would like to point out video game console sales by these companies over a different time span where they've competed... That is totally fine with me.

No one's disputing the numbers, we're just saying they don't really matter except to soften Sony's financial blows from subsidying the PS3. The fact that the PS2+PS3 combined have outsold just the Wii over the past couple years has nothing to do with what the sales of each system will be like in a couple more years when PS2 sales die off. You might as well add all the PS3 and 360 sales and say, "Look, HD consoles have outsold non-HD consoles this generation!"

I don't think anyone could have missed the point more even if they tried.

The entire point of the DS and Wii comparison with PS2 to PS3 was that the market for the PS2 is late adopters who don't need cutting edge technology and are price-minded shoppers....and the market for the PS3 is largely early adopters and people who like to have cutting edge technology and don't mind price if its what they want...in short they are completely different markets. The exact same way the Wii being a console is a different market from the DS which is a handheld. My point had nothing to do with which was still in production or whatever you were erroneously driving at.

If you want to sit around and frame things in a way that makes you feel all warm in fuzzy inside thats great..feel free to do it but spare us from making a thread every time you do. The simple fact is that if everyone decided to make a thread every time they get a wild hair up their arse and want to cherry pick some data the entire site would be overrun with this drivel...and actually now that I look around it is headed that way. This comparison has no analytical purpose, the only reason to do a comparison like this is if you are a PR rep for Sony trying to find a lighting angle that makes your rewired jaw look normal. Thats the reality of the situation no matter how much you guys want to sit around and play with these numbers.

I'll tell you what I'll "deal with it" and let you guys have your warm fuzzy feelings thread if you "deal with it" and stop pretending that this thread is anything but PR and lipservice for Sony.

 Its these kinds of thoughts/statements that I've stopped reading this forum as much I used to because its becoming painfully obvious that there's hardly any real intellectual thought left anymore.

You mentioned looking at PS2/PS3 hardware from launch - this can't be done worldwide (no Others data for PS2, apparently), but it can be done in America and Japan:

http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=Japan&cons2=PS3&reg2=Japan&cons3=&reg3=------&weeks=156
http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=PS2&reg1=America&cons2=PS3&reg2=America&cons3=&reg3=------&weeks=156

PS3 is under half of the PS2 in both regions.

Edit Bonus: Make that third line Wii or GameCube and you might notice something interesting.

lots of sony hate going around here. but the op does have a point.

if i may take you all to the world of retail...companies dont compare market share on a per sku or brand basis, for example, coke. coca-cola doest go around and saying, hey, my coke regular has x% market share as comparted to your pepsi regualr y% market share. they usally go around saying, hey, my coke product line has x% market share and your pepsi product line only has y% market share.

it also makes sense that the op didnt include handheld since its a different market. much like how p&g and unilever categorizes their products under hair care and skin care. they dont combine these two when getting market shares as hair care and skin care are again different markets.

so if we consider current selling home consoles, and by current i mean home game consoles that are still being manufactured sold and supported, by brand, sony is still actually leading total unit sold as shown by the ops numbers regardless if its a ps2 or a ps3. and no, that is not cherry picking as we are considering current as already stated.

now if we talk about handhelds, ms has none so automatically they lose. anyway, in this market, nintendo has sonys ass so bad that its not even funny.

so in the end, in the home game console market, the sony brand name still regins supreme while in the hand held market nintendo is the king.