I agree with this, and it is why it is too late for Sony. 



Seriously though, the age of the console doesn't really matter. When the HW is about the same, neither will really feel old before the other one. 

I also don't see how Sony can drop the price much easier than MS can. 

I believe Sony now loses ~ 50 dollars pr console sold, and MS loses slightly less (MS made a tiny amount of money pr console sold before the price cut. Sony lost a tiny amount. If the dollar/Euro hadn't dived, Sony would have lost less, but as it did, I believe they now lose more than the 360. 

Now, of course - it is slightly easier to reduce costs of something expensive than something cheap. Still, I would think that it would go like this.



Ps3: 399 dollars

Xbox 360: 199/299/349 (different skus, I believe this is pretty much the price)



Sony drops price

Ps3: 349: 

X360: 199/249/299



Ps3: 299: 

X360: 149/199/249





You see, the Ps3 will always be more expensive to make than the X360 Elite. As the Elite will always be a lot higher priced than the Arcade (and to a certain degree Pro), this means that Ps3 will always cost more. 

Even when (if), Ps3 reaches 149 dollars, the X360 will probably be

79/99/129 dollars. 



And by that time, a new more powerful console will have launched. So you can either go by the cheap one, the powerful one, or the medium expensive one, that is also about as powerful as the cheap one. 



It isn't going to change a lot in the price area.  

Well said +1

I would hope both Sony and MS have given up on first place cause WII has been crowned champ this generation.  The issue is the 360 has been out 3 years and heading into its 4th year.  The 360 has a 6.2 million lead and GROWING which is really the issue.  By the end of christmas it should be over 7 million and even if the PS3 starts to turn it around in 2009 they have NO shot of catching them in 2009.  The new generation of consoles will proibably come in 2011 which means PS3 is in third pretty much the whole generation

You are wrong.

In terms of new consumers, yes, perhaps PS3 will start selling more in 2009 as it appeals to more people... but what you seemed to be assuming is that people will sell their X360s for a PS3. Very few people will be willing to do something like that.

Think about it.... you bought an Xbox 360 in say early 2007, built up a library of maybe 10-15 games.... say 3 of them exclusive to X360 (ignoring PC)... you are not going to sell all that just for a PS3 and a small handfull of exclusives because you won't get much money for an old X360 and it's games, and if you are only going to build up the same collection (changing a few exclusives) on the PS3 it's a big waste of money.

For sure not, do you often play again the games you bought months ago? Most people sell them anyways.

Clearly not... most people don't sell their games after they played them, I still have all my Wii games, all but 3 of my GC games, and about half of what my N64 collection was.

Most people don't even buy that many games in the first place.... the "hardcore" crowd on the X360 might make up ~20%, those are the ones who will have bought 20+ games, and not all of those will sell games they have played. The majority of X360 owners will only have ever bought 3-5 games in total.... I highly doubt they owned only one of them at a time.

And yes I do often play games I bought months ago, I bought Mario Kart Wii in April and it hasn't yet seen a month without play. Super Mario Galaxy I bought Last November and completed it within 6 days, then in ~July I went through again. Endless Ocean I will probably be putting in again soon which I recieved last Christmas. Wii Sports got regular play for the first 12 months, but in the last 10 months it hasn't been in much, though that will change come Christmas when some family multiplayer can bring it back out.

 I think that is wrong. Most people would play them again.

Then again, I'm biased as I love to re-play games. I play the best games pretty much twice in 12 months (Single-Players), and there is little change that people will sell the multiplayer ones.