Can we go back to the original topic or should we just say Checkmate and end it here.

I have to agree with Stringer here.

Also. Have Nintendo not said before that the Wii isn't in competition with the PS3 and 360. Yet if Sony say it, suddenly all the hate gets thrown about.

A few thoughts.

On Wii experience vs. PS3 experience. Anyone would be a fool not to admit that the PS3 has more options and better graphics. They would also have to be a fool that those do not seem to matter to most people as the Wii has out sold it globally 2:1 since launch. (If you extend that using the logic of one PS3 defender who shows how its sales are as good as the PS2 from now til launch, it means the Wii outsold the PS2 2:1 the first 84 weeks after launch). And there is both a greater variety of games and more shovelware (really bad games) on the Wii.

As for factual error by the Sony exec -- the Wii cannot access the Internet straight out of the box. You have to download the Opera browser which is currently 500 points (and which needs to be upgraded for better Flash support, IMHO).

On games and consoles -- Nintendo no longer appears to be enforcing (or able to enforce because they expired from what I heard) the hardware patents on the NES and SNES. Clone machines which play 95%-99% of old games are available at many places. And original machines are on eBay. While purloined ROMs for out-of-print rare games is one thing, downloading something that can be readily found for sale today is something else.

Mike from Morgantown

PS -- Patcher's comments in the article were instructive: The battle for second place is relevant. In other words, he sees the Wii winning. He has seen the light. He is even now critical of NPD.

Well yeah.  People often has to decide between keeping or getting rid of stuff because of space.  I've had to throw out stuff cause i haven't had room, to keep it... you don't see me demanding to get it back at a later time.

If it meant that much to you, you would of kept it.  I've got a games library in the hundreds with tons of consoles.

That Splitter guy can better retire.

 The Saturn actually had some pretty asinine hardware, and, as I recall, the slowest clock speed of the big three that generation (N64 being the fastest, Playstation being a distant second, Saturn just under the PS), and it was not known for online gaming.  The Saturn also bucked convention by being built around quadrangles rather than triangles which is essentially the standard for 3-D polygonal gaming.  So convoluted and difficult to use was the Saturn's hardware, that it's been said that only Sega's internal teams were ever able to fully utilize it.  That said, it was a good system cut short by Sega's short-sightedness and dreadful business decisions.  Interestingly, the hardware design that became the N64 was, apparently, originally offered to Sega for the Saturn.

As of now, though, I have no preference on which system was actually "better" at the time, the Saturn or Playstation.  The Saturn had a lot more options available to it, such as (as you said) the ability to add RAM and the built-in flash memory.  Which, by the way, is dead in my Saturn (need a new battery).