J. Drop the arcade to $100.

How awesome would it be if Megadude was one of the higher-ups at Microsoft's gaming division, and while being completely lost on what to do, he comes here undercover to ask us very knowledgeable VGChartz users?

Think about it, it could be true.

no it couldnt, thats the dumbest thing ive heard.

That would be genius. No one would ever suspect that Leetgeek's alt works for M$.

No one except for your crazy ass, that is.

 I am ctrl alt Megadude. WTH are you babbling about?

You will get a X360 Arcade when it hits $150, say in 2010 when it reaches that price point. I find that hard to believe that a die hard PS3 fan would betray Sony.

A-E

Well first of all,  I believe that this generation will last longer than the previous ones did.  Simply because the competition is close.  The HD consoles are neck and neck with the Wii and neither 360 or PS3 is really pulling away with anything just yet.  Stark contrast to previous generations where there was a clear cut software dominating, userbase dominating platform.

Secondly,   The PS3 has already proven through sales in the past.  That consumers perceive the PS3 as a 'better' product. (Before all Xbox fans jump down my throat with that comment let me explain).  Consumers perceive the PS3 as a product more worthy of a higher price tag than the Xbox 360.   When Sony slashed the price of the PS3 last year (And it outsold the 360 WW on a weekly basis and for what 8 months?) .   The market IMHO has been established.   Consumers view the PS3 as a worthy investment if it's UNDER $200 more expensive than the Xbox 360. 

It wasn't until Microsoft reclaimed that 200$ cheaper price point again,  that it has out sold the PS3 on a weekly/monthly basis. 

The point is,  if Sony can get the PS3 down to 300 or 350$ it will sell very well in comparison to the 360. Now I'm sure this will spark Microsoft to dropping their consoles price to keep the stranglehold on marketshare. The only thing is, Microsoft doesn't have much of a floor left to drop their price further.  I would say 100$ is about as cheap as you will see the 360 (Or any of the consoles for that matter).  The key for Sony is trying to maintain a sub 200$ difference in price.   As long as Sony keeps pumping out quality games and keeps developer support,  it will be viewed as a viable console worthy of the cost and the sales for it will not die out in the same way that other systems have done (GC/Xbox/etc).   I believe this generation is a pretty unique one in many ways.

I was under the assumption that the Arcade is far and away the best selling model or is this false?  Most consumers care about the bottom line value (Let's face it).  Price is the single most important factor in almost any purchase.  I believe consumers as a whole don't care about the technical mumbo jumbo of adding bigger hard drives and doing other minor things. 

I agree that Microsoft will take that approach,  but the only price point that Microsoft has left to generate a good influx of sales is probably the $100 and the $150 price points. 

And we have no idea how cheap the hardware inside the PS3 will be in 2010, let alone in 2012.  If Blu-Ray adoption starts ramping up further and further.  (Go to your local retail store and you can see that it's only a matter of time till it's going to be a full blown 'must have'. ) You can expect a signifcant decrease in a large cost of the PS3.  Since none of us are in the know,  that's more of a wait and see what happens.  I don't think Sony is in as bad of shape as you are implying.  Obviously, they are in no position to just drop the PS3 to $200 tomorrow,  but I believe you will see a drop to $350 or $300 by the end of the year at the absolute latest.

Since when does the PS3 lack software sales?  That's news to me?  While they don't get revenue from their service (Like Xbox Live).  Sony does have more first party studios than Microsoft and I would imagine gets a bigger chunk of the pie of these games that sell well. They also have a revenue stream from a variety of sources including their movie downloads, Home, Qore,   Sony still has online games for PC and other outlets (Such as Everquest for example) that still have paid subscription services that go directly into their bank rolls. Sony won't make drastic moves IMHO,  but they are not as poor and unable to do anything as people imply.

It is ridiculous to compare sony's financial situation with microsoft.

Sony has NEVER MADE A PROFIT ON THE PS3!!!

Sony also has 7 billion dollars in debt whereas microsoft has never had 1 penny of debt in the company's history