true.... else the first to leave would have been Nintendo, with their failed N64 and GC. And seriously... I dun wish to see that happen. Nintendo will always be the one laying the stepping stones. Whether they are in the lead or not, is another issue.

Definitely.

The N64 and Gamecube weren't failures, they just didn't sell as well as their competitions. The N64 has the greatest game of all time and many of the greatest games of all time from any genres. It sold fairly well and was an all around good system. The Gamecube is a pretty similar story, just most of the games didn't have the impact the N64 did.

I'm not saying 20% is a lie...but why does that matter?

As far as I'm concerned...when a game is released on the PS3...it is using the entire PS3 to play the game. Depending on how well developers work, that game can look very very good or just plain...throwing around a number like 20% is misinterpreted by a lot of fans.

Yes, Blue3, the PS3 is very powerful. But a lot fans take these percentages and act like when games start to use 75+%, they're going to look like heaven on earth. Yes they'll be much improved over PS3 launch titles, but that's nothing to flaunt about...every system improves over time. You think all Wii titles are going to look like Wii Sports? Not quite.

Have you ever heard of Blu-Ray?  It stands to make Sony hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars.  And do you know what hope it rides on?  The PS3.  You think Sony is going to lose a lot of money by dropping the price of the PS3 by $100-150, despite massive cuts to their costs since launch, yet you can completely ignore all of the money they put into BR that'd be lost if the PS3 fails?  Are you kidding, or just completely bonkers?

Do you have any information -- any at all -- to back your claim that Sony will make billions of dollars off Blu-Ray licensing? Not just the Blu-Ray association, mind you, but Sony itself. 

 Because you know Sony is a charity organization they're gonna give all their money to the rest of the Blu-Ray Association.

I'm not suggesting that Sony wouldn't make ANY money. I'm suggesting that Billions is... a lot. The Blu-Ray disc association consists of the following companies:

• Apple Inc.
• Buena Vista Home Entertainment
• Dell
• Hewlett Packard
• Hitachi
• LG Electronics
• Mitsubishi Electric
• Panasonic (Matsushita Electric)
• Pioneer Corporation
• Royal Philips Electronics
• Samsung Electronics
• Sharp Corporation
• Sony Corporation
• Sun Microsystems
• TDK Corporation
• Thomson
• Twentieth Century Fox
• Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group

As well as Warner Home Video Inc. These are simply the "founders" by the way -- the "memebers" tally over 250, and every one of them gets a share of the profits. Now, I'm no expert, but that means the patents (not the actual profits from the movies themselves, which go to the respective movie companies) would need to gross 19 billion dollars to give the average company in here a billion dollar return.

My understanding is that DVD patents -- the sum total -- returned about 600-700 million. I also understand that liscensing the DVD format cost cents, not dollars, per movie. I'm certainly willing to believe that portions of my math are incorrect, because, as I've already suggested, I'm not an expert on the subject. But 1) you have to show me I'm incorrect and 2) I'd have to be really, really incorrect, as a few hundred millions dollars in the patent values would only yield a 10-30 million dollar increase for Sony specifically. As far as I can tell, they don't stand to gain anywhere close to a billion dollar return on these patents.

And this doesn't even tackle another issue that ChiChi brought up: he apparently assumes that Sony is doomed to defeat in the format war if the PS3 fails, and is assured victory if the PS3 wins. Neither of those can be assumed, so dropping the price precipitously bears the same risk with Blu-Ray as it does with the system itself; dropping the price doesn't assure anything. 

Sony will need to drop the price by at least $150 IMHO.  I reckon it will need to be between $150 and $200 and should happen by around November time.  A $100 drop simply won't cut it at all.  $499 is still a huge price to pay.  I reckon it need to hit the $399-$450 barrier to make an impact.

Similarly in the UK, the RRP need to drop from £425 to £299.  This is the pricepoint Sony need to get to to start shifting units.

All in all though, they need to start producing the games and releasing them this year. 

Well, all I want, is if they drop the price by whatever, the also reintroduce the 20gig, for 100 less than that. I mean seriously a 300 ps3 20 gig, i'm good to go. 400, is a mabey for a 20gig. Imho they will need at least 1 version of the ps3 at the 360 standard price, whatever it is at the time of microsoft's price drop.
If give a choice of a 360 or a "core" ps3, i think people will choose the ps3, but only then. Heck, if they dont bring it back, i'll just buy the "new" price of the leftover ps3 20's that pop up on ebay, hopefully for less than 100 below the dropped price.