First and foremost, MS is never going to go broke over the 360.  They can give away 360s for $50 each and they'd do just fine...the Xbox divison is a very small piece of the MS empire.

But more importantly, don't discount price as a simple "gimmick".  In todays miserable credit market, price is as important as ever.

And I don't think anyone is saying that Sony is dead or second rate.  The PS3 is definitely the superior console... but it costs more than the competition and Sony doesn't have the ability to drop the PS3 much lower at the current moment.  I drive an Escalade, and the comfort and superior technology in it makes it a bargain to me... because I can afford to drop $60,000 on a vehicle and pay out the butt for insurance for it.  But it doesn't matter, because the average family can't... that's why they buy compact vehicles that get 30-miles to the gallon.

So I can argue with people all day long that the Escalade is a bargain for the buck, but they don't have the money to buy it so my arguement will fall on deaf ears... they'll still buy an sub-par, cheap sub-sompact.

@ OP

Excellent. Another gamer decides to forget about the console war and actually start enjoying gaming again for the actual games.

Sales do indicate if a console will have a successor, more so making profit which comes from hardware sales :O. Of course what you said does not even hold true, cant see any big 3rd party Wii games besides Monster hunter 3 which one only big in Japan. I do hope that changes soon though, sadly the 3rd party Wii games just dont sell very well.

Kingdom Hearts 3 on Wii though......SE you want to make money or be retards?

I believe the term you are looking for is "successor".

Brand power only has a small effect, and that's mainly on small, impulse buy products like Coca-Cola, brand power generally does not translate onto expensive items.

If it did, the world would still be driving around in a Ford.

congrats on your escalade????  Most of america before this time of troubles couldn't afford an escalade either.  Dude people have money.  If people who want to spend money they will.  This is not the great depression.  If i wanted to go out and buy an escalade i could too.  The choices people are making is on their own.  I never said microsoft would go broke.  I am saying if PS3 dropped the price microsoft will fight to the death it seems.    We all know that PS cannot drop the prices anymore.  

since when did 1st party games decide who wins the console war?  SNES

Some brands do have an effect, like Apple.

Sony was actually positioning the PS3 as the iPhone/iPod/iMac of consoles (i.e. premium items), but didn't work out.

Has PS3 lost all 3rd party support as well? Tell you what though, Gran Turismo 5, Killzone 2 and GOW 3 sure will sell a whole lot of hardware and software.

as long as Sony makes a profit this gen (or minimizes losses) and continues to put out grear 1st party games I'll be very happy.

Minimizing losses/profit means a Playstation 4. And I don't care if PS3 wins or comes second, as long as I get some good games!