wow wow... don't forget that

   1. US computer and video game software sales grew six percent in 2006 to $7.4 billion – almost tripling industry software sales since 1996.

   2. Sixty-seven percent of American heads of households play computer and video games.

   3. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

   4. The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 38 years old. In 2007, 92 percent of computer game buyers and 80 percent of console game buyers were over the age of 18.

   5. Eighty-five percent of all games sold in 2006 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+. For more information on ratings, please see www.esrb.org.

   6. Eighty-six percent of game players under the age of 18 report that they get their parents' permission when renting or buying games, and 91 percent say their parents are present when they buy games.

   7. Thirty-six percent of American parents say they play computer and video games. Further, 80 percent of gamer parents say they play video games with their kids. Sixty-six percent feel that playing games has brought their families closer together.

   8. Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31%) than boys age 17 or younger (20%).

   9. In 2007, 24 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.

  10. Forty-nine percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. In addition, 34 percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device, such as a cell phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.

so games is not about kids anymore but about kidults... but you are right too... just don't forget those facts that a lot of people don't know a realise.... 

 @ squrriel

Continue to believe that Microsoft has been given a raw deal if you will and that most people are mindless sheep unable to choose the console that will truely make them happy (which in your opinion must be the XBox 360). I will continue to believe that Microsoft has heavily targeted a small portion of the market and has failed to address the desires of the market as a whole; much like the original XBox the XBox 360 will get good games released for it's weaker genres but many of these games will be new IPs which are overhyped and don't meet the kind of success (in terms of sales and critical acclaim) that XBox fans expect.

 I know for a fact they are

but I'm not saying XB should make them happier.... quality and consumer needs/tastes are too often unrelated... and I can prove it in less than a 10th of second...  

Honestly, I've owned a 360 for a bit over a month and have been heavily researching upcomming games; I am always amazed at how a single screeshot with absoluetly no information about the game can spawn so much hype in the XBox community. I could understand the hype for some of these games if they were produced by a good developer or were part of a critically acclaimed series many of these games are hyped as "AAA" based on a single screenshot even though their developer has never produced a good game.

 that's weird because it was known to be an PS stupid fanboy trend (i'm not saying all the suporter of PS just the stupid fanboys).... and a few month ago a lot of XB fan were bitching about halo graphical quality so it's really strange what you are saying...

and about the dev.. I'm sorry but in the case at least of those three ME, BS, BD.... it's not small time studios... I'm not saying the game are going to be good or not in that case I'm just discussing the quality of the dev studios...

what game with one screen shot you are talking about ? (it's not an attempt to attack you, it's curiosity, because I usually never follow a game with one screen shot or even just a cut seen trailer, so i'm curious) 

 How many time i'll have to say, there is no relation between quality and consumer behavior.... why windows is working better than OS X or any distribution of linux or other Os which are known to be better and sometime even cheaper if not 100% free? why people buy Ipod when I can show you some better products technicaly speaking than Ipod.... why people eat shit and get fat when it takes 10 seconde to make a salad with fresh vegetable.... the best one WHY PEOPLE SMOKE.... people got tastes which are not especially related to the technical quality (so pure facts, not opinions) of the product

There is a direct relation between sales and what people want, so I'm still waiting for an answer.

yeah and thorsXXX was argueing on the quality not the sale number

Which is very broad and vague.

Quality is completely subjective, and the whole argument that the 360's lineup has more quality is a red herring.

The original argument was that the 360 has the "best lineup ever" with the added notion that this is going to have it as the top-selling console this holiday season, and this has already been refuted several times by the fact that this isn't reflected in its sales and by the fact that it's missing exclusive AAA titles from several genres.

It is important for the 360 to do as good as it did last Xmas.

But, I feel that this Xmas is more critical for PS3 then Wii or 360...

If 360 loses Xmas 2007 it can counter next year. If PS3 loses Xmas then PS3 is doomed to 3rd place this generation.

So, while Xmas 2007 is important for 360, I think Xmas 2007 is more important for PS3.

Remember, over half of the year's sales are at Xmas... So, if PS3 sales don't match 360 sales, then it will take a good part of next year to catch up...

@Lord N

1: I would be willing to bet most people who go out and buy gaming consoles don't know as much as we know about "release dates", "future games", "exclusives", etc....

2: Lots of consumers, probably bought PS3 because the PS2 was CLEARLY the best system. Lots of consumers are buying Wii because of the waggle.

3: And endimion is correct there is no relation between qualityof a product and consumer behavior. People may WANT something that isn't the best product becuase its HIP... aka Ipod... You two are both right. But just a product has high quality does not mean people want it.

Also... 360 has been at full price for a REALLY long time... that could have something to do with it... people may be doing nothign but waiting for a price drop. Or its price may be to high for your average gamer?

There are some reasons for ya
I don't take part in prediction league becuase I do not and never will understand consumers. So maybe all my reason's are completely false as well... but those can at least get ya started as to possibilities.

WHAT ??? no quality is not subjective.....(it's based on facts, ie graphics, physics, frame rate, horizon line, lenght  of the main campain ,AI,  etc you name it) the fact that you like it or not is subjective though... but not spec quality of a product... ie I hate stealth and realistic FPS game it doesn't make MGS4 Splinter cell conviction, COD4 bad quality games... they are good quality game.... I still don't like them

 Yes, you are right. In fact due to this fact I don't really see Microsoft in such a difficult situation as the PS-3. The Wii will probably play the major role in this and perhaps the next year, but even if the console drops to third place its deve3lopment would not cease, because improvements in theXBox 360 version will in many cases benefit the PC-Versions.

Its main difficulty is its GPU, but in the long run, effective procedures will be known in the programming of this unit and stored in libraries. Then they will only decide which library function to choose.

Improvements for the PS-3 will instead be necessary for the Ram (difficult to control due to the different operations in this unit) and the use of SPUs (which face severe contradictions between modern programming practices, and optimisation advisaries) which have many things in common with GPU shader units (in the way of memory access and so on) but simply sit in the wrong place for this kind of work. So it is doubtfull that its powers can be released in a general and efficient way, to decrease its development costs. Especially if you consider that such problems are nothing new, but there was never a suitable solution found. Without a miracle I don't see how the PS-3 would survive a long running fight against the Xbox. If I am not way off the PS-3 might need a user base of 2 or 3 times the of the Xbox 360 user base to be in a comparable situation. It would need other advantages against the Xbox 360, but in the long run it will be beaten by cheaper HD players, while its memory problems decrease the value of alternative OS systems like Linux.

So I would say that the pressure on the PS-3 is much bigger to make the necessary turn around in this and the next year, otherwise it might find itself in a very severe situation. 

While it is difficult to predict consumer behaviour, it is rather easy to predict developers: They always look for the cheapest solutions with high possible gains and rather small risks. And if a plattform has more developers it has better chances to have must buy titles. 

I honestly think that Nintendo has the best lineup this fall/winter. They have Fire Emblem, Battalion Wars 2 with online co-op, Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Zack and Wiki's Adventure, and Super Samsh bros. Brawl. I am a huge Videogame fan but I prefer Nintendo over Sony, and Microsoft but, I respect every game for what they are worth even if I do not like it. (Stares at you Grand Theft Auto!) LOL. Meaning I have no hostility to any gamer even if they hate every game that I like.