Technical specs cannot be exaggerated, unless you're talking outright fraud. Either you have a 1.8Ghz Core Duo or you don't...that sort of thing. Marketing can be exaggerated.

BTW, has it occurred to you that the "weakest console" is also usually the cheapest to make?

Quick math test: which side of this equation is greater?  256 + 256 = 512

Hey, you know what?  You spent a whole paragraph arguing how PS1 and PS2 memory were always undersized versus their competitors', but those consoles also happened to be the market winners of their generations.  Shouldn't your fact then be that the console with the least RAM wins?

   I am sorry if sounded so brash, just tried to say my humble opinion.

...but way too expensive!

Ok, here I will try to count some facts about the NextGen Consoles based on the past experiences...

 Fact 1 :  High Price Consoles never win!

 This is what we saw with 3D0, NeoGeo, Sega Saturn and partially with N64 before. None of these consoles gained considerable success, and quickly died out after real competition. Saturn endured some while in Japan due to its exclusive titles and Nintendo did "relatively" well thanks to their Franchises and massive first party support but never shined like NES or SNES. PS3, here, suffers the same problem. With a price tag like $600 or 600 Euros, you cant go anywhere beyond Niche! The allegedly superior hardware and great "potential" accompanied with a brand new "bluray player" will not save your ass! Because Most people dont give a damn about the Bluray or the "potential" which may or may not be fully utilized. Also the majority of people are "present oriented" (rather than "future oriented") and they do invest on "today", and it hits them pretty hard to invest on an uncertain future and pay extra 200 or more bucks for a machine with a brilliant mind! Why should I pay extra 200-300 bucks for PS3 while the very same game comes for Xbox360 too?

 Fact 2 : Sony's Technical Specs are always vastly exaggerated and Claims Never Come True!

 This was the case with PS1 and PS2, and probably with PS3. If they say, you will get 100, please expect 50 utmost. I still recall "360 K polygon count" for PS1, which was a lot greater than N64, but everyone knows N64 had much better graphics unless it was hindered by the Cartridge Limits. The much exaggerated Emotion Engine Hype of the PS2 turned out to be nothing worthy but rumours since a casual pentium type Xbox CPU could easily surpass the EE of PS2. Whatever PS3 has on board, it will never come to fulfill its potential, regardless of whether or not superior to Xbox 360, and most of the so called supercomputer crap will remain just on papers.

  Fact 3 : Always the Weakest Console wins!

  I dont know much about the earlier generations but this has always been the case since 80s. NES won much over stronger Master System just like SNES won against Genesis. Both Saturn and N64 were stronger than PS1, which had a far cry on sales and glory. PS2 was much weaker than XBOX and even GC, but had 70% of the market. So by this "rerun" of the past logic,  Wii is gonna win this generation.

  Fact 4 : Sony is Notorious for the LENGHTY LOADING TIMES.

  Sony Consoles had much longer loading times than its competitors. N64 had almost intantenous loadings while Saturn had very short loadings thanks to its 4 Mbit CDrom Cache, while PS1 made us sick about it! Xbox had its hard drive and faster DVD drive, while GC had propriety format which was way faster than the sickening ps2 loadings. And now I see no reason why this wont apply to PS3. I read some articles about Xbox360 having a greater speed than PS3 bluray player, which got lots of criticism saying that the Xbox features "peak" numbers while ps3 bluray had "constant" numbers. Well, the numbers that looked well so far for Sony didnt work this time I guess, and the Sony supporters had to find a way to contrast the "weakness" of PS3. One thing that we gotta note down is that DVD is an old and totally settled down, matured technology while Bluray is just a baby now. Xbox carries a highly advanced DVD while PS3 barely is shipped with a 1st Generation Bluray. For God's sake, just like the first DVD players were slower than modern CD players around at that time, Bluray is most probably gonna be slower than Xbox360 DVD player. They might get faster in the future but PS3 is shipped NOW. Also there will much larger data for PS3 to be loaded every now and then, considering the much larger capacity of the Bluray (which will be utilised during the game, causing higher data flow and longer loadings). As Always, Sony is gonna have the longest loading times while Wii is gonna have the shortest (as usual!)

  Fact 5 : PS3 has a greater speed as potential.

  PS3 was launched one year after Xbox360 and lots change in this time. Xbox was stronger than PS2, and likewise, PS3 is probably stronger than XBOX360 too, so there is no shame or nothing to be surprised about this. But there are two flashing points here...

 a) When Xbox came out, its first generation games shined compared to those of PS2s and Xbox's performance was obviously much better than PS2, more than the gap between Dreamcast and PS2 as they said. But today We see no PS3 games seeming considerably better than Xbox titles, but the opposite could happen to be true, and we just assume that this is either because of the crappy ports or it was just the first generation games, man, wait for the second generation!?? This was never accepted as a legitimate alibi for Xbox games in the past though. As I can see, even if PS3 is stronger than Xbox360, the gap is probably not greater than between Xbox and PS2, for which, people never seemed to make such a fuss about. So Even we'd assume PS3 is this much stronger than Xbox360, so what? It hadnt hurt the PS2 sales the least bit!

  b) PS3 has greater potential than Xbox360, thats true. But Potential is "niche" by definition. Most people do not pay for the speed since they believe what they see right here, right now. Atari Jaguar had a lot of 64 bit potential (crapped right away), Saturn had a lot more untapped potential (with 2 hitachi processors) over PS1, we read a lot of crap about the Emotion Engine potential of PS2 but all those were rarely translated into real world performance. Oh 7 SPUs, oh My God, what can I do with all these supercomputers!? What is it good for while it is extremely exotic and takes a couple of years to learn and another 2 to push the potential, and this will renew every other generation wise. They succeeded this with PS2, thanks to more down to earth price and mass market adoption, but it will not work with ps3.

  Fact 6 : Xbox360 has More Memory and a Better Memory Structure.

  PS3 has 256 MB+256 MB RAM while XBOX 360 has 512 Unified. There are of course other complications to this but a much better Memory Management on Xbox360 proves that it is clearly better than PS3 on this aspect. Xbox360 gives away only 32 MB of its to the OS while PS3 has to sacrifice 52-64 MB of its main memory and 32 of GPU memory. So to begin with, Xbox360 has Net RAM of 480 MB against 192+224 or 204+224 MB.  This is no surprise actually, because Sony has always had the lowest memory against rivals (except Wii and early DC). Both Saturn (2+1,5+0,5+0,5) and N64 (4+2) had more memory than PS1 (2+1+0,5), while Xbox (64) and GC (24+16+X) were superior to PS2 (32+4).

  Fact 7 : You cant win globally if you fail in either of those two markets, Japan and America.

  XBOX360 is now the supreme leader in the Americas and is currently in the lead in Europe, but far back in Japan and hard to see the light in there. If Xbox360 had the number of sales in Japan, that they had in America or Europe, than they would certainly play for the first place against nintendo. However, Its almost definite that they will be number 2 on the market just like the pervious generation but with improved numbers and behind Nintendo instead of Sony this time.

  Fact 8 : Wii is picking up and gonna take the lead soon.

  Wii is gonna take the lead soon like in one year, but this doesnt mean that its gonna dominate. The sale figures and trends tell us that Wii is already in the lead in Japan, gonna take the lead after summer in Europe but World lead wont come till 2008. Most surprisingly Lead in America will not come for another 2 years at least and maybe never. Because Xbox360 is still very strong in some parts of Europe like the UK and the Americas. It will take at least 1 year in the UK and almost 2 years in America to take the lead -if the current sales are sustained-. However, we know this will not happen. Wii is older technology per se and novelty is gonna start to wear off while the initial reaction to a brand new console will also fade away. Xbox360 sales, on the other hand, may very well rise thanks to new releases and a probable price drop, shrinking the sales gap. So, Even though Wii will dominate Japan and take the lead in Europe and overall sales in the world, A global domination is very unprobable thanks to the Solidly Established Userbase of Xbox360 in Americas and the UK.

   Fact 9 :  PS3 sales are far from building a momentum.

  Given the extremely low PS3 sales, people began to find alibis and excuses for a soon recovery for PS3. Go see the figures yourself, Xbox360 sold more consoles than PS3 globally since the PS3 launch! Xbox360 came from a somewhat 5.5 million mark to 9.5 mark (selling 4 million) since the PS3 launch while PS3 sold barely 3.5 or so. This is unforgivable for a console in its launch year and was never this low for any successfull console. This happens in spite of the extremely low Xbox360 sales in Japan and almost 1 million ps3 sold in there (where most people buy it as a bluray player!). The ever dropping sales of PS3 tell us that unless PS3 globally surpasses Xbox360 in monthly sales this year, its dead and buried.

Cos nobody likes Europe

Seriosuly, Europe always gets short shafted, I saw an advert for the latest MacBook the other day, for $1000, so I saw how much it cost in the UK, and it was £700, so that's $400 extra we have to pay, that can't be all import taxes...