I'm glad we didn't, otherwise we'd be looking pretty stupid now heh?

Great thread! I think it's time for a PS3 2009 VS PS2 2002 thread as well.

IMO in terms of console specs, the PS3 is ahead of its time. From a console tech perspective the PS3 would have been more suited to release by christmas 2009, compared to historical specs (but with bigger harddrive and slimline components).

I view the tech as such, so from that perspective the PS3 will have more than a 2 years headstart to allow developers to adapt and mature their game engines, increase install base and mature the services.

IMO the PS2 was a rather normal specced console in 2000.

@MikeB

What difference do you believe there is in the PS3's situation than in the situation of past consoles that were the most technologically powerful of their generation? Traditionally the most powerful system did not get the highest sales.

EDIT:  And I asked earlier if you had some information on a coming cheaper slimline PS3 with a PS2 emulator?  Both because I would be very interested in that being a possible future purchase of mine, and because you used that to back up your prediction.

  If you don't have any information on such a thing happening anytime in the near future, then are you just guessing on things that could happen that may back up your prediction?  Not confirmed information that would support it?

Crazzy, congratulations with a thread which will last 4 years and will find you defending your prediction even 2 years from now when the PS3 still has more than 50 million consoles to sell to reach the goal. I would have expected a PS2 in 2002 versus PS3 2009 thread, but I guess you don't want to be proven wrong every single year. Btw, I think your prediction will fall about equally short as PS3 did in 2008 in comparison to PS2 in 2001.

So if the PS3 should have been released in 2009 because it was so advanced, what does that tell you about the XBox 360 that was released a year before the PS3 and has similar performance to it?

The engineering behind the PS3 is (sort of) like a chef who chooses to put as many of the most exotic spices into a dish as possible regardless of how these spices taste together ... The PS3 is not "Ahead of its time" as much as it was unnecessarily complicated and poorly thought out.

LOL.....alot of ppl here on this site are full of hate towards SONY

i totally agree with crazzyman.....by the end of 2012 the PS3 will be around 100million

i believe SONY would push the PS3 for 10+ years and refresh the hardware model more than 2 times to keep it on par with the rival consoles (xbox720 & wii-too)

I wanted to start off by saying it is an honor to be a part of such an epic thread. Now as for Crazzyman, can you tell what the Wii and 360 will sell in this same time frame since you have it all figured out?

So you think that the PS3 is going to start to sell 20 million units a year for the next 4 years?  Keep in mind that the only console to average that much in a year is the Wii.

Regarding CPU peformance and general design the 360 is not similar in terms of actual potential performance. And there are other factors with regard to being more advanced, like having a high capacity Blu-Ray drive. PCs came with DVD drives well before the PS2 launched, in this sense the PS3 is actually ahead of standard PC technology.

It's a bit like an Atari ST vs Amiga thing, where early Atari ST to Amiga ports were better on the less advanced but simpler Atari ST. But the Amiga far outshined the Atari ST regarding exclusive games a couple of years further along.

Don't get me wrong the 360 was well specced for a 2005 console, it would have been a solid specced console if it didn't have such a failure prone design (and should have had a default harddrive, like the original XBox). Gears of War 2 looks good, even a launch title like Kameo still looks good. I would rather have had Microsoft waited till 2006 to iron out all the fundamental design "mistakes".