"Microsoft doesn't pose a real threat"

To be honest if you consider the number of first party studios to pay for, keeping the PS3 at a low marketshare and severely diminishing their console sales through competition, Microsoft could cause SCE to self destruct.

See if most HD publishers are losing money then Sony first party studios must be losing money hand over fist considering they can only sell to 40% of the HD console userbase. That $6 saved from console owner royalties is a pittance next to being able to address 100% of the HD console userbase.

I think exactly like Lord N and Onimusha12.
That's the usual MS that I always known.
Even if MS want to target Nintendo next generation, which supposes that Sony is no threat anymore (leaved the console market?), I'm pretty sure they can't.
People keep saying it left and right: western devs can't adapt to less powerful hardware, they need the most powerful to make their games. Thus, they're bound to fail no matter what on a handheld or on an easy to use console. Their level of sophistication is too high for the audience of Nintendo they want to target.
As long as they're unable to understand, like lots of "hardcore gamers", that Nintendo's online is better than theirs, and continue to believe they have the best, they have absolutely no chance of keeping a target on Nintendo.
To target your ennemy, you need to understand their moves first.
They're VERY FAR from this point.

In recent light of this economic recession, the Western and HD Markets have shown just how frail and lacking of adaptability they are. And even before that, the sheer redundancing of Western HD titles and bottlenecking of diversity in games was already showing the limitations of Western Developers and the cost of HD gaming.

Never before have circumstances so strongly enforced the argument of a third video game market crash being imminent if it were not for the Wii.

And as usually there is no limit to how much people overestimate Microsoft's power and ability to steal market share. Microsoft is a bumbling fool, granted, they're not to be underestimated or taken lightly either, but then again, they're hardly the architects of conquest that the 360 would have them seem.

Now you're 2nd guessing. Sony could have just as easily lost twice as hard had they instead attempted to target the segments of the market Nintendo captured. It would have essentially given Microsoft a free reign targeting the market that both Sony and Microsoft presently occupy and instead they would have had to face the strongest console in the history of consoles on its' home turf. In fact by releasing a console much closer to the Wii it would have strengthened rather than weakened Nintendos position because it eliminates the single key weakness of the system which was the initial lack of third party attention.

@ookaze

"To target your ennemy, you need to understand their moves first.
They're VERY FAR from this point."

Really... Not really. As you do not know what any of the console manufacturers will do, the only assumption that works is that Nintendo will win in a status quo environment. However the assumption that the environment next generation will be status quo now theres been a fire lit under the butts of all 3 console manufacturers is pretty weak now. Last generation, yes... This generation going into next, no.

This thread is fucking brilliant....I actually read every single post.
Am I contributing to this thread not really. I just want some more excellent posts.

Dont let me down GVC users!

On the contrary, it would seem you are the one who is second guessing by presenting hypothetical situations that could've happened but didn't.

I think you're trying too hard to make an argument happen where there really isn't one to be had. Each of your replies thus far in either some way shape or form misunderstood or misconstrewed what I've said.

I'm not sure what you think I'm trying to say, but none the less you seem hell bent on there being a reckoning with anything I say. And since you haven't clearly or adequately responded to any of my posts, I'm left with little else to say other than "good luck with that. More power to ya."

@ Oni: What im saying is this.

At the start of this generation there were no winning solutions, no way to beat the Wii because the mistakes that led them to the PS3 were made in the PS2 generation. Therefore you cannot just pick out Sonys "mistakes" and say that had they not made them things would definately turn out better. You cannot know how the changes would have effected things up until now even if given the chance to go back in time and force them to say not use Blu Ray. Hindsight is not 20/20, unlike the saying.

You can't simply just say hindsight isn't 20/20 without any evidence or reason to show an alternative outcome you suggest as a hypothetical is just as likely. Sure, there is a slim, microscopic, chance anything could have happened, but that miniscule chance alone is not enough to ignore the facts, circumstances and knowledge we possess now that give us insight into what has transpired and how this situation has played out.

There are no facts, no logic and no reason to think that things would have turned out the same this generation (or equally bad for Sony) had Sony stayed the course. It is not an adequate argument or defense for one to simply say, "you can't know what would have happened so to make an assessment is by default incorrect" when we have all these facts and evidence to support what did happen and what most likely would have happened otherwise.

You have no argument, just silly benefit of the doubt which you are trying to leverage as an end all be all trump card. It's defeatist logic, as in to accept it is to forsake any value in anlayzing events of the past to discern the outcome of the future.

Didn't they already bribe rareware??

I'm not sure they will, since that leaves you open to the other guy. M$ went after sony and nintendo snuck past them, and are now out of reach, so imho, the wii went after a ideal, and that led to success.