Others can lower the price ,thats true .But Sony has the manufacturer of its consoles (not as MS and Nintendo who hire somebody to do it ) can transform directly the improvement in the production into cost reduction ....MS and Nintendo cant do that as easily they have a contract and have to respect it until they renegotiate it to include other components or lower the fee payed to the manufacturer . Besides the brand name serves for something .PS2 has been more expensive than Cube and Xbox for most of their lifetimes and still beat the crap out of those consoles .Dreamcast was also cheaper than PS2 .If the console has value ,and the PS3 has lots of value ,people will see it and once it is around 350 dollars/euros run for it ...no matter if the X360 is at 250 then or the Wii 175 . Plus ,not everybody doesnt know how to count .400 + 5 years paying 60 is still more expensive than 499-599 .Some not too clever people get obsessed with the entry price ,but others measure the total investment cost in some years .I know some people ,myself included ,that wont buy a X360 ever because it is a very online-oriented console and they dont want having another yearly bill in their bank counts (even if it is as low as 60 ) . I wont keep discusing this too much ,it is a waste of time .Playstation 3 is doing good enough and will reach the milestones of the X360 last year(one million sold,two million sold,5 million sold ,first game million seller ) far quicker than the X360 did ....maybe it will need a price drop sooner than expected if the pace isnt fast enough to catch up but for sure the console isnt going anywhere (as going to hell as you posted ) .If selling more than the competency in the same periods is doing horribly wrong then let be it .....but your wishful thinking will receive a smack in the face when come January Sony announces it has 6 or 7 million sold ...

I have lurked for awhile, but had to weigh in on this thread. I am a hardware engineer, and I have looked at all 3 of this gens layouts/PCBs. The X360 and the Wii were designed for manafacturability. Period. They will be able to reduce BOM costs and target new selling prices over time. The PS3 looks like an engineering sample (I think a testament to the problems they were having getting things pulled together on this platform). It uses extremely expensive parts that just don't scale as well pricewise with economies of scale production levels. Sony will have to undergo a SERIOUS redesign process before they can reasonably expect to lower the cost of producing their units, which, with design time, testing, mechanical adjustments and retooling is a 6 month project. In full disclosure mode, I own both a Wii and a X360 (to be quite frank, I am a nintendo fanboy - if one can call a responsible, professional member of society a 'fanboy' heh), and I do think that the PS3 will mark the end of Sony's dominance of the console world (albeit for different reasons than most here -- Sony has hitched way too many stars to this one platform (BR, consoles, etc) and I don't think that BR will win against HDDVD (manafacturing differences, closed standard, and its a Sony technology -- MiniDisk, Betamax were the best options technically but Sony managed to rip defeat out of the jaws of victory in both cases). Just felt that the reasons other than weak sales should be addressed here. Sony has more problems that just marketing in this next gen war. As a side note, I think that the retooled X360 with an HDMI port which is rumored will be a huge shift in sales numbers for M$, at least in NA. Area Now, let the flames begin.

Yes other consoles can cut prices, but you have to remember that the PS3 is selling faster than the XBOX 360 already. It all comes down to 1 question. If you could buy a console, would you want the one that has strong support among U.S. developers, or the console with strong support amound U.S. and Japanese developers? Unless you are really hyped about the new Microsoft IP's (like me Too Human, Alan Wake and Mass Effect which look great) you would probably go with the PS3. The only reason I want an XBOX is because I have always had Nintendo (NES, SNES, N64, and GC) and I would like to try the system with the most original games, but most people want sequels. I hate the comments about which console is easier to program for, they have no effect on the eventual winner. The PS2 more difficult to program for than DC, GC, and XBOX, so who cares. (Don't forget about Windows vs. Mac.)

Sony's in danger of a snowball effect happening. Its the same thing which happened to Nintendo ten years ago. Someone commented about Ninty's "seal of quality," and the practices they had back then... Its true, Nintendo strictly limited the amount of games that third parties could release... 5 games a year was the policy.. But lets put that in perspective... When Atari dominated the industry, the idea of "third party developers" had never occured to them... When third parties started putting out crappy rip-off games by the dozen, and even pornographic games for the system, Atari tried (and failed) to sue their pants off... With their own support behind the ill-conceived successor to the 2600, consumers lost faith in Atari, and the whole home console business crashed... Now Nintendo comes and along with the lock-out chip in the NES, but they also become the first company to openly court third parties, with the limitations meaning that they couldn't just try to cash in with endless bad rip-offs... But Nintendo became arrogant in their success... Even though many third parties had proven themselves to be great developers, Nintendo kept its "quality over quantity" policies right into the release of the N64... And Nintendo got taught the lesson that it didn't matter that they owned the vast majority of the major franchises of the previous two gens: the quantity of titles PlayStation was able to amass was more important. Sony didn't even need a ton of internal development; they raked in the cash just from liscensing fees from third parties. This was a whole new business model. And with the ability to develop as many games as they wanted, third parties could take more risks then they could under Nintendo's iron fist, resulting in a ton of breakout new hit franchises. Right now Sony is losing 200 bucks on every PS3 it sells. The major reason the cost is so high is that they opted for Blu-Ray, to try and parlay their videogame domination into HD video... Because of this, Sony needs to make more money off of liscensing fees from third parties... So game prices go up 20% to 60 USD... But developing for HD actually raises the cost of development even more than 20%... So third parties are basically being asked to finance Sony's interest in the home video market... Now at first glance, it still looks like Sony has an impressive list of exclusives... FF, MGS, DMC, GT. But new B software is being announced for Wii seemingly every day... It just isn't reasonable for third parties to develop exclusives for PS3 unless they are surefire hits, which is why every PS3 game of note has a number at the end of it... Sony may find themselves in the same situation that Nintendo was in 10 years ago, where even though they have seemingly all the important games, the quantity the Wii (and to a lesser extent 360) can amass, in the process gaining pretty much all the new hit franchises, may be more important. Now with far more 360s and Wiis on the market right now, we could see a snowball effect... Devs know that 360 has the hardcore audience in NA locked up... If they want to launch a new franchise like Lost Planet or Dead Rising, the 360 is the only system which makes sense right now... If they want to make something like Trauma Center or Elebits, Wii is all that makes sense... More and more games coming out for the other systems means they sell more, giving them a greater installed base advantage, and bringing on more new games still... Also, someone mentioned "radical unique exclusives" could make a difference... Hmm... Check those most recent Japanese charts...

Well ,Sony losing 200 or 300 for console is absolutely stupid .Yes ,I did read the isupply inform ....but it is totally wrong .Sony dont go to the shop to buy the components for manufacturing its machine ,it produces them or buys them at fabrication cost with rappels (discounts ) for sales .To think that for Sony putting a BR drive in the PS3 is the same cost as for an individual buying in the local shop a BR drive for the PC is absolutely ridiculous . Once that covered ,its clear what will happen in the way of support .Occidental developers will develop for both the X360 and the PS3 ....maybe the base version will be the X360 but as demostrated with the PS3 versions (rushed ports but almost identical to the X360 ones ) the PS3 will have its own version and almost identical (if not better once they know a bit better the hardware ) .As for the japanese developers ,most will develop primarily for the PS3 .They dont expect sending their games overseas as a first tough ,and the PS3 will be the console of choice .Some big publishers as Capcom can have the X360 in their toughts but the exclusive content for that plattform has died with Lost Planet lets face it ,it will get ports at best .So ,some big publishers are going to port their games to the X360 ,but others wont .In first party titles Sony has way more than Microsoft ...the third party content of Microsoft is of good quality but not much quantity .Rare has just lost its founders ,Bungie only does Halo ,Lionhead is a good acquisition ....but Sony has backing them Insomniac ,Incognito ,Polyphony ,Team Ico ,Level 5 ,Factor 5 ,London Studios ,Evolution ,Guerrilla ,Naughty Dog ,Ready at Dawn ...and many others as they reportedly have 100 studios out there . Finally it will be about getting one console with the 65% percent of the games released or another with the 90% . The PS3 can flop ,but probably wont .Right now it is in its worst scenario possible (no new games since 12 december ,hardware shortages for christmas and good supply once all the money has been spent ,games delayed ,bad press ,high price ,fanboys in all the forums attacking it ..) and it still is doing better than the X360 so things arent as grim as some would like to point out .