i totally agree...cause to be honest and i am a sony fan...that shelf space for the ps3 is small as heck...and i can see why its lagging in sells....did the dreamcast have alot of shelf space when that system was out??

Well, that can be a sign of a failing console, but not necessarily. I believe it was in early 2002 that Sony dropped the price of the PS2. The X Box and Cube were nowhere close to it sales-wise, but it was pretty obvious that a price-drop was coming from someone. Sony just did a pre-emptive price-drop to beat MS/Nintendo to the punch.

 It was really a brilliant move. It put the PS2 into the "sweetspot" price range, they got the initial press for dropping first, and it made MS and Nintendo look like they were following Sony's lead with their prices(which is kind of true).

Well, that makes it more difficult ...

An indicator that would probably work would be total retailer shelf space for a product after about 18 or 24 months on the market. If you walk into any major game retailer (including Best Buy and Walmart) they generally set up their store to give the most shelf space to the console which is selling the most software and accessories; when you look at the ammount of shelf space for systems, games (including budget and used games), accessories and game guides.

As an example, in the last generation my local Walmart had 2 game cabinets for the PS2, 1 for the XBox, 2 that the Gameboy Advance and Gamecube shared; the PS2 had a similar ammount of shelf space devoted to budget games and accessories as the Gameboy, XBox and Gamecube combined.

The sign that the Dreamcasts days were numbers was that stores stopped carying accessories and they didn't really restock games after they sold out of the initial run. In other words there was very little shelf space and most of the space was empty.

what do you mean in terms of failin?? do you mean that the console is Discontinued or that it lost the console wars

Well, if the company is no longer making money on it and has no prospect for making money on it in the future, it is on its way to failure. This generation, the goal of every console is to make money, and if they do not do that they're failures.

Last generation was different because Microsoft said its goal was to break into the market so they could make money on the Xbox's sequel.

When you don't see all the other consoles got 5 times more games released every quarter?

discontinued thats what i mean....my question again and happysquirrel seemed to nail the answer is..... "how do u know if a console is gonna fail (discontiued) without looking at sells? the answer i came up with was that if u see the console manufactered constantly make price cuts then it seems that now one is buying their system...as can be seen with the gamecube the xbox 1 and the dreamcast the nintendo 64....that was my answer....happy squirrel stated the fact that if u dont see enough games or objects for the system then its an indication that the console make is in trouble....again the question is "How do u know if a console maker is gonna fail without looking at sells?

u lost me there what was the point u were trying to get across??

Wasn't the PS2 the first console of last gen to make a price cut even though it was the dominant console at the time?

because they were already a year in.....it came out October 2000 and they made a price cut May 2002...xbox and gamecube couldnt because they just released the console in November 2001....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2 

on the content section clip on price history it will tell u...