Does the PS3 have BC in your scenario?

The Wii would be the best deal for gaming unless it would be about to have a price cut.

Anyway, you do realize that your scenario is not realistic, right? The Wii can definitely go below all the other consoles at any time of Nintendo's choosing, and the 360 will probably continue to undercut the PS3's price for the rest of the gen just because it can.

But it's a fun hypothetical: The 360 has lots of games now, but the Wii will be getting lots and lots of awesome games as time goes by. Meanwhile, the PS3 will have its share of awesome games and it DOES still play Blu-ray (and Home!).

i'm pretty sure that by the time the PS3 is priced $200 the wii will be priced in $150 max

On another note, I think that the "magical $200 price point" has been way overblown. That was the mass market tipping point for the PS2. I believe the Gamecube launched at that price, so it's hard to make a judgment there. I forget about the Xbox's sales history.

This gen, 2/3 of the consoles started at WAY higher prices, so it may be that the popularity price doesn't have to be as low. Meanwhile, the Wii has been sitting at $250 for its entire life and if it hasn't already found its "magic" then johnlucas' 500 million prediction might just be right!

The Wii was launched at the right price. The other two consoles X360 and PS3 were over priced and have suffered with mediocre console sales as a consequence of the higher launch prices. The price is critical for success of any product.

When prices of  the consoles are equal we will have more competition. Competition is great for any industry.

Does live still charge, does the elite still not have wifi? Sony easily offers the best hardware if all systems are at an equal price, and they'll likely have the most great games by that point.

The prices of the consoles will never be equal, and in any case the products are not equal.  360 has more games than PS3 but PS3 has free online gaming and built-in wifi and Blu-ray and hardware that is slightly to somewhat superior.  If the PS3 could magically cost the same as the 360 tomorrow sales would explode and that's a fact. 

The Wii is very substantially less powerful than the other two but has motion controls and Nintendo games and has captured the attention of the masses as well as gamers (this is an advantage the other systems are highly unlikely to match).  ILike the PS3, it has built-in wifi and free online gaming. 

Price is important but it's not everything.  And competition is good, agreed, but I just want to check that you realize your scenario will never come to pass as stated.

They will NEVER all be the same price point.

The wii might be the same as the xbox, but there will always be a large difference between the xbox and ps3.

I expect the $100 price difference to still be in place in 2010, and the machines to be priced at $179-$199 Xbox360-60GB and $279-$299 PS3-80GB

It will take some time to bring the cost of the PS3 down anywhere near to $199.

(recap 2010

Wii                        $129-149

XBOX-360-60GB   $179-$199

PS3-80GB             $279-$299

)

(edit; LOL, my sig agrees and thats from the start of the Year)

Nintendo has launched all its consoles at this price point.

I've said this many times and will say it again, the "magic" price-point is $249.99 and has been since the iPod caught fire. But it, of course, takes more than just the right price for a product to take off like that.

 The NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and GameCube all launched at $200, so if you take inflation into account, every Nintendo console was their cheapest console ever.  Yet at the same time, every Nintendo console was their least successful ever.  Each one was cheaper than the last and sold fewer than the last.  It wasn't until the Wii that they raised the launch price and became insanely successful beyond all our wildest dreams.  This proves that magical price points are definitely not the most important factor for a system's success.  However, the PS3 and the Neo-Geo have proven that horrible price points can be the most important factor for a system's failure.


Given the choice of all 3 at $200, I'd still go with a Wii.  I'm in love with the thing, and I still think $250 was an amazing deal for the amount of fun I've had with it.  If I already had my Wii and I had the $200, I'd buy Wii games, and maybe food.  If I already had my Wii, some games, some food, and I had $200 that for some reason I had to spend on a $200 PS3 or a $200 360, I don't know what I'd do.

I could get a 360 with Dead Rising and Beautiful Katamari, and ask the users here what else to get, but I honestly have no interest in Halo and would barely play any new shooters without IR aiming.  I guess I'd rent GTA4 and play a ton of Hexic, Uno, Geometry Wars, and mostly small games on XBLA.  I might as well go with a PS3, but only if it has backwards compatibility, because I'll mostly buy dirt-cheap used PS2 games (I don't have a PS2), both Katamaris, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and every Karaoke Revolution game ever, even the Japanese ones.  No PS3 game has interested me yet.  I guess I'd rent Lair and GTA4 to see what the fuss was all about, and I'd rent LittleBigPlanet to see what all the fuss is about.  Oh, and I have an HDTV, so I'd try one of them movies on the Blue Rayes.  But just one.  pr0n