I doubt MS would do that, and Wii is selling far to well right now at it's current price point for Nintendo to consider dropping the price by more than $50

I'd see MS bringing the Pro down to Arcade price levels and Elite down to just over Pro Levels and the Arcade drop out of the system entirely if Sony had to cut their PS3 price.

But yes, I don't think any of this will happen in 2009 either...

Probably the only thing that hurts more for those people that are upset is that a console that isn't Sony is trouncing Sony and that console, according to them, has no games.

Hey, welcome to the site

Most people here on this site have accepted that the PS3 will essentially tie with the 360, and your points, whilst good, will not be enough.

Sony's brand name has helped an enormous amount. I personally believe that if it weren't for Sony's success in the previous generations, the PS3 would have been discontinued already. But the fact is, their image has had all the effect it can, and it has been tarnished these past few years.

Sony's first party studios cannot hold a candle to Nintendo's, but they are better than Microsoft's, who have sold off or disbanded many of their studios for some reason

The PS3 is currently being sold at a loss for $400, by the time it hits $249, the Wii will have outsold the PS2 and the next generation of consoles will be about to begin. The fact is, Ninty is making huge profits, MS is making small profits, and Sony is making small losses. By the time Sony is ready to drop the price, both MS and Ninty will be able to price drop if they need to

I don't feel this analogy is entirely congruous with the current generation battle.

In that generation, the PS1 was a new breed but all 3 companies were still targetting the same 'traditional gamer' market.

In the current generation, the Wii is a new breed but crucially it's also aimed at the new 'casual gamer' market, which is severalfold larger than the PS3 & 360's 'traditional gamer' market.

And that's also why in an ideal world I'd define it all as: 'Wii is king of the casual market' and '360 is king of the traditional market with the PS3 currently a close second', so as to make the distinction.

I guess it's like: ABBA (Wii) vs. Jay-Z (PS3) vs. Nas (360). I wouldn't feel comfortable calling ABBA the 'king of music' for selling more albums. The rap market is much smaller than the market ABBA was appealing to, so I'd call ABBA the king of their market and say 'Nas is king of the rap market with Jay-Z currently a close second'. (I know nothing about rap though, so don't take my ranking of Jigga and Nas to heart if you're a big rap fan; just using as an example).

I shall now prepare to be flamed for coming ambiguously close to saying 'PS3 & 360 aren't competing with the Wii'. I know that on graph-paper they are competing. I just feel they draw from different markets.

I wasn't trying to use the N64/PS1/SS generation as a direct comparison with the SS/N64 as Sony/MS. I was only making the comparison of current-day Sony to past-day Nintendo and Sega - both companies went into the 64bit generation with high hopes (especially Sega) and got totally trounced in every imaginable way....Much in the way that Sony has.

And the problem with arguing that PS1 was trying to capture the 'traditional market' was that what we currently define the traditional market, was not the traditional market then. The traditional market of the early 1990's were entirely based off of kids and some teens - Sega made a killing targeting younger white teen males, while Nintendo had younger fare, and did a little bit for the older teens as well.

But the Playstation 1 made it relevant to everyone inside those age brackets, and outside of them, and made gaming more socially acceptible - in the same way that the Wii is doing it today (and the DS did for females about 3 years ago for handhelds). You can't go from generations selling ~80 million consoles to ~150 million and just assume the same brackets are buying video game systems - they weren't.

Fair words. I agree with the thrust from your first paragraph; after all, I was only saying that the analogy wasn't 100% congruous (but then, maybe I was being mean there, since what metaphor or analogy is 100% congruous with what it refers to?).

As for the expansion of relevancy, I suppose I'd have to agree again. I guess I just feel that the expansion of relevancy brought about by the Wii is on a greater scale than that of the PS1. (Numerically, SS=1 N64=1 PS1=3 vs. PS3=2 360=2 Wii=9).

And now I'm going to bed (5:48am over here in the uk, omg!)...

Do not underestimate the power of the Wii.

Had it released in 2001 instead of the GC it would have crushed the PS2 completely. It would have rendered moot every criticism of the platform.

Yea i never understood their argument about no games for the Wii.  And when they do this they mean future games all the time it seems.  Cause they will state a bunch of games for the PS3 or 360 that are coming out unknown date like Killzone 2, Final fantasy ect.

I mean if you are a non console owner and look at the Wii you see Mario, Zelda, Metroid, RE4, Zack and Wiki, Smash, Guitar Hero, and list could go on for a long time of games that the Wii has out RIGHT NOW that you can get.  So what does it matter if in 09' the Wii stops making any games ever again.  You still can get 20 great/amazing games for the Wii as of right now.  And that is what consumers see as the Wii being worth the $250.  Only internet/gamers/hardcore the super minority know what the future holds for each system while the average knows only what he see's in stores.  Which as of now is a huge Wii section and small PS3 section.  Without even looking at any game covers it seems obvious to him what is a better value.

Althought Sony has taken some beating with the Playstation brand image as of late, it is undeniable that the mother brand "Sony" still carry a ton of weight with electronic consumers. Even Microsoft executives had publicly admitted that the reason they almost gave up the one year lead in Europe was because they had difficult overcoming Sony's brand equity.

On the other hand, what Microsoft had done even with the RROD fiasco was nothing short of sheer briliance. It seems that the general public had largely forgiven MS and started buying the system again. I believe that the RROD issue had set MS back on its cost cutting effort for at least a year. We could have had the $199 Jasper out in 2007 if MS engineers had time to work on it in 2006. Instead their engineering team were tied up trying to correct the RROD issue much of 2006.

Why are you breaking down my facetious comment?  Did you not realize that it was said in jest?