Gballzack, your actually 100% right, and I feel that's a major problem with the Xbox 360 and PS3. Only the video game console industry has increased the price of their hardware generation over generation for this most recent change. Before this, the typical range was $200-$300 for the primary consoles. We had NES, SNES, N64, GC, Wii, PS1, PS2, Xbox, Sega Genesis/MD in this catagory. Yes NES was a bit less, I believe, but still in that range. In the other catagory, we have Saturn, Dreamcast, Neo Geo, CDi, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. Which catagory was more succuessful? It's not like MS or Sony couldn't of built great next-gen systems for less money. In the case of the 360, they still made a mass-market price 360, but it was devoid of the critical HDD component. I waited in line 10+hrs for my 360, just to sell the 2nd one so I'd get my 360 for nearlt $150 USD. I did it because I've never paid more than $200 for any console I've bought. Ever. No system is worth that kind of money. Compare it to computers. In the past 10 years, a "good" system in 1995-6 would set you back $2500, in 1990, it'd be $3000 or so. Now a good system is $1200 or so, and economy class computers start at $500. Video games should be trending the same way, as they use the same components.

 The problem with that is Nintendo sales alot f software, giving the 3rd partys a even playing filed would mean less software sales for Nintendo.  And they sure as hell dont want that.

But I understand your point. Sony and MS decided that it was time to raise launch prices on their consoles and it's obvious that consumers aren't buying into it in large numbers. Nintendo took a more classic approach (they're actually overcharging for what you get with the Wii) and the console is selling like gangbusters.

Personally, I hope things are scaled back a bit next generation so that companies can come in at $300-350 at launch and deliver a solid hardware experience, but nothing outrageous like the Cell/Blu-Ray/I'm going to take over the world approach of the PS3, but also nothing as woefully underpowered and overpriced like the Wii. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.

My rig is 2000+. So yeah. If you can get a quad core for less than 1800, Stick, let me know. 

He said a "good" system, not top of the line gaming rig. :P Capable of running most games on average settings. My 3.2GHz processor and 2GB ram with a crappy 128 MB video card suffices for most things and it cost me not much more than a PS3.

Also I'd be willing to bet that it's the high prices of the 360 and PS3 that caused the Wii to be $250.  If the 360 and PS3 launched at $300, I guarantee the Wii would've launched at $200.

Well I mostly agree.  Your point that the Wii is overpriced for what you get is sorta misleading.  I know what you mean, but others will take it the wrong way.  Nintendo sells the Wii for a $25 profit (slightly less in America because of Wii sports bundle).  Economically speaking, anytime demand is outstripping supply a machine is underpriced, because it means that they are not maximizing their profits.  Ideally, you would sell 90% of a stock at a price that's well balanced.  The PS3, by pure economic terms, is overpriced, because supply far ouststrips demand, despite the fact that it's sold for a large profit loss.   Really the terms under and overpriced are often misused because people think of them as the "bargin" the company is giving you, but in fact they should really only be used to describe the consumer's demand for the product.

I agree that the next generation prices need to drop again.  I think this generation proves that very concretely.  Selling a high graphic console is fine, but if you work to hard to take too big a graphical leap you charge far past the market value. 

Also OriGin, because you are in a minority system section this generation, you are going to have to deal with the fact that many games you want won't be going to your system.  Through 2008 you will see big titles hit the PS3 and 360, but after that all your going to get is mediocre 3rd party support and whatever first party games the 2 companies can come up with.   The only way that will change is if those games somehow magically sell millions of copies despite small system user bases.   This is very unlikely.  Although this generation is unique in that one system is weaker compared to the others than usual, it's still likely to follow the basic trends of previous generations.  In general, the console that was selling fastest 6 months after launch has always won the generation.  I'm affraid if graphics are what you want in the big name franchises, gaming isn't the right hobby for you.  Not once in history has the most powerful console won the system war.

In that case, it's never been much more than 1500! The big difference now is that one can easily build their own system if they prefer. Having no assembly fee cuts costs dramatically. It's always been possible to build your own system, mind you, it's just much easier now than it was before the internet was so accessible. 

So, to repeat: you could have gotten a "good" system in 1990 that played most games if you assembled it yourself.  

One argument that a lot of people still leave out is the devs vision. The game that they want to make, an artist's view of it. Does no one realize that some programmers want to make the most incredible game that they possibly can? I welcome the higher developement costs, why? Because maybe there won't be nearly as many CRAP games that we have seen before on the more powerful hardware. Where as the wii is much more likely to see horrible games with a higher advertising budget than actual dev cost, HAH lol

No matter how successful the Wii is it will not prevent the development of future graphical enhancements and modeling tools. In the near future companies will continue to develop games for the PC which take full advantage of processing power beyond what is available on the PS3/XBox 360, and modeling tools (content creation tools) will continue to advance both for games and 3D graphics in general.

What we're likely to see over the next couple of years on the HD consoles is ecconomic darwinism. Companies that keep costs low through content libraries, advanced tools and methodologies are likely going to thrive while companies which allow costs to escalate will suffer. Through hundreds of presentations at various GDC conferences infomation will be passed onto the general game development community on how to develop large quanitites of high quality graphical assets for a game while keeping costs down. Certainly, it may take extreme steps to keep content costs reasonable (like companies opening 3D modeling sweatshops in china to produce tens of thousands of generic game assets) but developers will find a way.

You forgot 3DO, I still have that expensive damn thing, oh well it was fun :) Very good original post BTW.

 EDIT: and Turbographix16