I really think Microsoft is going to have another price drop within the next few months once Falcon launches. A $299 Premimum system with a pack-in game would sell incredibly well.

Mass market is the part of the market that continues the success of a console throughout its mid-life and towards the end of its lifecycle...and it is the same for all consoles...the fanboy market is those that purchase the system at launch and then after awhile they start to go down and the mass market starts to fill in the rest of the life of the console....

It's worth noting that the PS2 experienced 25% of its sales during the one year that it was at $200. By comparison it spent 1.5 years at $300, 1 year at $180, 2 years at $150, and about 1.25 years at $130.

 I think that's pretty strong evidence that $200 is really the threshold at which people start considering a console and marks the division between early adopter territory and mainstream territory.

 I'd say that at $250 the Wii is getting a mixture of early adopters and a portion of the mainstream. I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg for the Wii.

Well yeah...as those graphs showed that I posted earlier....when a console hits around the $200-$300 price range it starts to generate awesome sales..but price doesn't always play the part...because games and features do to...considering the PS2 also sold not only because of price and games, but because it had a DVD player...

There are two types of people who are buying the PS3 and 360 at the moment, core gamers and those with quite high disposable incomes who like the latest gadgets. Although it has to be said that there are people from both of those groups waiting for price drops and more releases, mostly for the PS3.

Wii is attracting more mass market but its unavailabilty has meant that casual gamers aren't able to buy it as there is only so much effort they will put into tracking one down.

Mass market = wide audience. So mass marketing is an attempt to reach as many people as possible. When it was seen that mainly kids and teenagers played video games, mass market really meant that if you got most of these people you achieved mass market. Today the market is bigger. So imo mass market means capitalization on a larger scale. I still think if you sold 100 million consoles then you will be considered successful and mass market achieved. However if the guy next to you sold say 200 million consoles it will make it look like they achieved mass market. So I guess if the difference between 2 companies is great enough, only one will be seen as having achieved mass market appeal.

No, they aren't purchasing the 360 and PS3 but the Wii is being purchased, it's true the mass market love the $200 price point, but the Wii comes with a game, so they see it as $200 for the console, plus a game they know they'll love(as they have probably played it at a m8z and heard about it thru word of mouth)