Last time I checked both companies were still in the red when it comes to their gaming divisions, so in reality they both fucked themselves.

Sony fucked themselves by introducing a expensive piece of hardware and then tried to regain some of the money lost by taking out features and giving up exclusive titles.

Microsoft fucked themselves by introducing a piece of shit when it comes to quality. And pulling money out of their asses to buy so many games.

See, this is why I hate when people use casual. 99% they use it incorrectly. Sony's fanbase was the casual gamers. Nintendo's is the expanded audience which people call casual. Nintendo is not winning becuase they stole Sony's market. They are winning becuase they made a new one. Women, families and the elderly rarely bought PS1s or PS2s. If the family bought them, it was for the sons.

So what you're saying is...the expanded audience isn't casual? Who's using the term incorrectly again? And if Nintendo's audience was entirely new, than how come neither the 360 or the PS3 are selling anywhere close to how much the PS2 sold (when launches are aligned). If there were really that many people holding back from buying a current generation console, than the PS2 would still be dominating software sales. And while the elderly may not have bought PS2s in large numbers, is there any evidence that they were a significant market in the first place? Plenty of women bought Playstation 2s as well. Maybe it wasn't as widespread as for the Wii, but the market was definitely there.

By the way, how do you think the PS2 got a userbase total of 120 million? It just sold to teenage and prepubescent boys? No. It captured the casual market, the expanded market, or whatever you feel like calling it.

I believe Sony will finish in 3rd and MS will finish in 2nd place.

The mistakes Sony made in the beginning of this generation acted like a powerful snowball rolling down hill, getting bigger and bigger...now it´s been 'tamed', but maybe (or probably) not to the point where it´ll overtake the 360 WW, but it´ll still be "the most successful 3rd place system ever" (personally, I view it as a good thing, shows the market has grown).

In the end, when both HD systems are sharing the vast majority of 3rd party titles, 2nd and 3rd place become, at least imo, irrelevant..as most devs view them as a single system, very different from previous generations when 3rd place or even 2nd could mean very little 3rd party support.

If your not cheating.....your not trying.

Wait a min it's still too early to announce a definate winner out of MS and Sony but yeah probably this gen MS will win SECOND PLACE.

Nintendo beat Sony not Microsoft.

@ Neoraf - Objective of Microsoft was to destroy the Playstation brand? Do you tell that to yourself so you can sleep easier at night knowing Nintendo is destroying them both? Take a close look at the difference of sales between Wii and 360 and then look at 360 to PS3.

Do you really think that this "Fall of PlayStation" is led by MS or something? Microsoft couldn't defeat their own damn self if they wanted to. It's probably the reason why their OS's keep getting shittier and shittier.

The bold deserves a facepalm, but more on that later.

This all goes back to Clayton Christensen, the writter of Innovator’s Dilemma. Why is the 360 and PS3 not meeting PS2's numbers? Becuase they overshot the market. Why is the PS2 not selling software. Becuase people get bored. Ever heard that "nothing gold can stay." People got bored with the PS2 as they did with the NES, SNES and PS1. It's also becuase software slowed and there was less software people wanted since all the developers were focused with the next gen. 

But most laughable of all. You actually try and say the elderly and women were a significant market. People were calling Nintendo crazy for their attempt to attract women and the elderly. Everyone thought they were insain becuase women and elderly were never a significant market until the Wii came along. Why do you see Wiis in retirement homes and not PS2s. Why do you here all the talk that more women are buying DSs and Wiis but this wasn't talked about during the last generation or the one before that. Why is ity a big deal now. Becuase those were not consumers people targeted. It's obvious to anyone that women did not play games. Heck, I don't think anyone here denies that the elderly did not play games. The avergae was 18-35 males. This is you trying to bend history.

Now the bold. The PS1 and PS2 did well becuase they were internation. The NES was not. The NES had problems in Europe due to legal reasons. Look at the others section for NES games and you'll see that they are really low or 0. When you factor in Europe (with a population that is greater then the US) and population growths, then you see how it sold that much. Nintendo is beating out the PS2's sales despite it's lagging in Japan. Perhaps this should clue you in on what's going on.

The awnser is obvious. New people are buying Nintendo's products. Brain Age, Nintendogs, and Wii Sports would have not done as well were it not for families and women (and elderly to some extent).

Actually it's a fairly known fact that the Xbox and later 360's main goal was to stop a multimedia device from winning the console war again because Microsoft didn't want the idea of a multiamedia center fronted by a videogame system in the public schema.

They want to hold if off until people are comfortable enough with computers to hook up their computers to their TVs.

Why should playstation brand be on top again? Is that a problem if it isn't?
Nintendo had it's downfalls the last two generations but is back again. And so playstation will be in the future. History shows us that nobody stays on top forever and that's the best way to happen. Fall and rise by learning from your mistakes.