No way Nintendo thought they'd be this dominant... If they were confident in that, Wii production would have been higher right from the start.

They must have known that they were going to attract new people to gaming, and also that motion controls could be a big success even with many traditional gamers, but I'm sure they didn't know they'd have shipped 20 million consoles by the end of 2007 ;)

Doesn't anybody think it would be a good idea to wait for this generation of consoles to be over before declaring "winners" and "losers" ?

MS is in it for the long-haul, not the short term. The money involved is almost irrelevant to them... even writing off $1.1 b is less than 1/100th of their cash reserves. Think about that for a moment. The RROD writeoff to MS is almost like having $100 in your pocket and having to spend 80 cents.

And each quarter MS keeps raking in billions more in profit: their 2nd quarter profits were $4.7 b. That's not revenue... that's profit.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-profits-big-windows-lifts/story.aspx?guid=%7B4C394111-041A-4830-B91D-E8B3CF325BB5%7D

Yes, MS wants to eventually make money on game consoles, but they'll keep pounding on the competition until they win or decide that they can't possibly win. Take Windows for example. Window 1.0 was horrible. It wasn't until Windows 3.0 that they even had a toe-hold in the GUI OS realm, and it wasn't until Windows 95 that they really started to gain complete control of the desktop PC OS market. They released the first Windows back in the mid 80's, and it took almost 10 years before Windows started to really pay off. How long have they been in the console business? 6-7 years?

Considering how much better saleswise the 360 has been compared to the original xbox, I imagine MS is willing to go at least another 2 generations before calling it quits.

Yes, it's not fair that other companies, such as Sony, aren't rolling in cash and have to please their investors with good dividends each quarter. But that's the reality of competing against MS in a market... they're going to have massive resources and a willingness to bleed red for a long time before giving up.

That was a joke...

First off, welcome to the forums...

Second, maybe it's you who don't get it (along with several others...)

Looking at gaming since 1977, EVERY generation of consoles have been a whole new ball game from the previous one. You can always compare successes and failures from one gen to the next, but each new generation can never depend on the successes of the last generation when you look at Atari, Nintendo, and to a lesser extent SONY since each new generation has always offered a signifigant difference from the previous one. Also, the only consistancy in the console market until this generation is that CONTENT IS KING. The Xbox 360 has the most content. But hardwarewise the Wii has already surpassed it in sales, and the PS3 has been erradicating the 360's 10 million units shipped lead with the PS3 still having aces up its sleeves. Because the "CONTENT IS KING" concept doesn't apply to this gen so far, it's safe to say that the only single consistancy has been trounced by lower prices (Wii) thus supporting that each new generation has something relatively new to offer where last generation CANNOT be heavily depended on. And even you said...

"The PS3 outselling the Xbox 360 is no accomplishment by any means..."

So doesn't the above quoted statement also implies that the 360 didn't win??? If it's of "no accomplishment" that means that the 360 is in worse position than the PS3. Your statement is either subjectively faulty logic or outright biased fanboyism/fangirlism. Take your pick. And what does...

"It was always 'supposed to'" suppose to mean??? Is this suppose to mean that both SONY and Microsoft joined together to plan this from the start? Is this suppose to mean that the Xbox 360 was doomed to be beaten by the PS3 rom the start, still implying that the 360 ALSO didn't win this generation? Or is this suppose to mean that you cannot take the fact that there is still demand for the PS3??? The PS3 is in last place, BUT it ISN'T in dead last. Consumers still want that the PS3, there is still sufficent demand for it, 3rd parties are still supporting it some using it as a lead developing platform, it still has its share of 3rd party exclusives, and SONY is pushing both their old and new IP's for the system. In a lot of ways ALL systems have won this generation as well as the PS3 which also allow gamers to win as well.

"Y cant people get it??"

 Ok thats just trolling..

*Sigh*

So will every console. Please stop.

Meh, I agree with you mostly, Zucas, but MS Doesn't seems to be making that much of a profit... RROD, shipping fees, repair fees, 3-year warranty, XBOX LiVE Servers, bandwith, I do think they are making a nice profit, but nowhere as CLOSE as Nintendo...

Also, the only reason the PS3 isn't considered the next DreamCast anymore is because of Blu-Ray's win over HD-DVD.

Agreed.

It's more of a qualitative assessment than a quantitative one.  Using Sony's console business as the yard-stick, they're doing much more poorly this time around.

There are a number of reasons for this:

1. The PS2 hardware was a definite leap ahead of the competition until the xbox came along, and MS was brand new and late to the party

2. The PS3 came to market a year after the 360

3. The Wii has "enough" horsepower for great 480p games, and the new control scheme is very innovative

4. Sony is now driven to a large extent by their media division.  This is why they damaged their image by introducing a root-kit level music-CD DRM approach, and why the PS3 sold very poorly in 2007 due largely to it's stratospheric price-tag, which was in part due to having a built-in Blu-ray player.

Overall, Sony isn't run by morons, so I expect they will lick their wounds and come back with a vengence next generation.