Its kinda disappointing that the videogame industry has become a proxy war between OS/Media Center monopolies and movie/format monopolies.

At least Nintendo is in this to make games for gaming rather than as a trojan horse for media center and blu-ray.

 Ironically it's Nintendo that's being accused of killing the industry. ~_~

Quote Bodhesatva: I'm not meaning this to be cheeky, I just don't understand how you reached this conclusion. How could Nintendo cause a crash here?

It's not Nintendo that will cause the crash, it's the lack of compitetion that will cause a crash.  If you eliminate 2/3rds of the competiton in any competive industry, there is bound the be a sharp decline in sales and support.

Nintendo would be fine, but the rest of the industry won't.

If MS and Sony had to bow out, you can guarantee someone else will try to rise and take thier places.

Apple has expressed some interest.
Sega may take a another look at their business direction.
NEC may come back.
Vaporware like the Phantom may get some 3rd party backing to actually launch.
Toshiba has HD DVD it could push for a console.
Panasonic may come back.


It would still hurt 3rd parties substantially but those that were profitable to begin with would survive to the next age of gaming with these new companies.

There won't be a lack of competition. Sony and Microsoft need to just grow up and not produce such expensive gaming systems, if they want to actually sell them.

My theory: Microsoft wants to offer 1080p movie downloads on their XBOX 720 (or whatever). So why buy Blu-ray when you can just download it onto your XBOX for cheaper?

Also Apple is trying to do this more directly with their AppleTV (right now it only does 480p).... I imagine they will release an AppleTV 2 sometime with 720p or 1080p and then you can just buy directly from Amazon.com and download the movie (you can already do this with 480p movies).

uggg all i can do is buy both systems currentlu have the xbox and had no problems with it (no rings wooo) but it has some great current games and upcoming games hopefully games will help with loses which they should, also with the companys that are losing millions backing systems they are going multiplatforms to help profits which should help

As for ps3 ill buy it when it actually gets some games i want on it (end of next year)

First of all, great data!! It's interesting that for many years, the Sony games division actually carried the rest of the company, now the situation is reversed for now.

 We have 2 huge companies trying to one-up each other in the razors and razorblades game. Each company has positive and negative factors going for them. I'm sure MS knew Japan would be a struggle, and that Sony knew it had the highest-priced console.

 But I think the big X-factor that neither anticipated was the Wii. Who knew the Wii would be cleaning house, and will likely take the lead by the end of the year? That throws a massive wrench in both Microsoft's and Sony's financial projections IMO, as they're competing for a smaller piece of the pie than they thought (the non-Wii pie). I know the Wii target market is a bit different, but on the whole it's hard to imagine that Wii sales haven't impacted Sony or MS (especially Sony in Japan!)

Executives at both companies are going to have plenty of sleepless nights the next couple of years. If Nintendo sells the most, how many console sales are realistically left for MS and Sony to fight over? Can their business models allow for profitability in a post-Wii world? I don't think either wanted to cut prices, but Sony was deepest in the hole and blinked, and now MS is going to as well. For their large head start, MS hasn't exactly set the world on fire. It probably could've been worse if Sony had just used DVD in a$400 PS3, but they chose BR for other strategic reasons.

It's quite possible that MS and Sony may roughly split the rest of the market, as both companies are so heavily invested that they're both 'all in'. MS has more money to use, but Sony is more desperate as the PS3/Blu-Ray is a 'bet the company' type platform.

 This will be good for gamers in that no one may end up with a dead console, but it will spell continued losses for both Sony and MS IMO, with not enough payout at the end to make up for it. Regardless, I'm sure they'll be lining up for the next round, but they may not assume such a huge initial loss per unit, it's a risky strategy.  Especially if Nintendo continues with another successful, cheaper next gen console.

some of you must understand what sony is doing. They are trying to propell a new format, Blu Ray, to the public to bring in the Hi def experience. Since the PS3 is losing money during production, there bound to lose money right now. But look into the future, 3-4 years from now, Blu Ray will become the format that sets the standard and replaces dvd. So Sony can take losses in the gaming division for some time as long as Blu Ray is successful, and so far it is, Comparing it to HD DVD.

why do Microsoft and Sony continue to push these overpriced systems that costs them more than they get back??? why can't they just release affordable systems without all of these unnecessary extras, apparently Nintendo is the only company that gets this, and eventually they'll be the only one standing.