and im coming at this from the assumption that PS and Wii would not share that 50% equally.

but if they did, motion controls would be percieved as "the standard", last gen. PS2 core players would likely still stick with PS3 and 360's graphical argument would look even more irrelivent to the majority of the market.

In the minds of 360 PR it would be the only true console of this generation. So it would be winning by default. Unfortunately it would still lack longevity XD.

Truthfully, I believe the 360 would be in last place if that had happened. At the announcement of the next generation, I am sure most were on board with the PS3 because of the success of the PS2. Also if the PS3 were similar in specs to the wii then most games would be made for those two and the 360 would be left out in the cold like the wii is now. Also considering the new market both the wii and the PS3 could be successful. With the amount of software due to easy porting, the wii and PS3 would be more favorable even to the "hardcore gamers."

If the PS3 went that direction. I would say that the "supposed" SD twins would have roughly 80 million units sold.

Imagine Xbox360 without street fighter 4, Resident Evil, and Grand Theft Auto. Now imagine all those exclusively one PS3 and Wii. You can't tell me that the software drop would help the 360.

^good point, 360's titles would be as buggered as xbox's wasted technical capacity last gen.

sony would have managed to keep it loyal base. likely a 299$ launch price.
and microsoft would have a hard time selling a more expensive console.
or at least having hard time to buy exclusives.

if the FF13 and FF13v were still going to PS3 cheap edition i would have still got it over 360.

@ underlined - that's not how it works. My prediction is the 360 would be on a lower market share than it is currently.

At the start of the gen, all devs supported Sony first and foremost. If they have the option of an easy port to the Wii, because it is similar to the PS3, then they would do it.

So with a cheaper price tag, better controls and Presumably games for everyone, the PS3 would do better

With better 3rd party support, the Wii would do better

With less 3rd party support, and all their games being ports of PS3 games and thus don't take advantage of the graphics, the 360 would have lower sales

Edit: Showertea reminded me of something. It's not waggle that is selling the Wii, it's not even the cheap launch price really. As in every other gen, it is games that sell the console, not the console that sells itself.

So, what you're saying is that everyone who bought the PS3 bought is solely for the HD graphics?

If the PS3 was SD, then there would be a significant number of people who bought the PS3 in 'our world' for the Blu-Ray player that wouldn't switch to 360. There would be a huge number of people who bought the PS3 for the games, who wouldn't switch to the 360 (unless the 360 got all the PS3 titles, like god of war and metal gear).

Actually I think a good point to make is the Wii gained a 10million unit lead over the competitors within the first year, but since then it really hasn't moved from being well that much further ahead.

This is provided we are assuming Most Consoles Sold = Winner.
Because software wise, while yeah the Wii does have some phenominal sales on WiiSport (is packaged with console so doesn't count imo), WiiMusic and WiiFit... the rest of it's titles are for the most part getting pretty mediocre sales figures.

I also wouldn't say that the Xbox sales have been really pushed forward by Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter 4 or Grand Theft Auto. I mean think about it all three of those titles are Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, I believe there is a Wii version of Resident Evil 5; but it's no doubt as god awful as Resident Evil 4 and can you even imagine trying to beat someone who's on one of the other consoles with an arcade stick controller with the Wiimote and Nunchuck?

While sure these titles being on the Xbox 360 doesn't hurt sales, I think if they had been platform exclusive like last generation that would've actually more hurt the developers themselves.

Especially when you consider that even since the first multiplatform titles, Call of Duty 3 for example which was the first title to be released on all three platforms... despite having mediocre overall sales, it performed the best on the Xbox 360.

Alright so at the time, the Playstation 3 wasn't exactly popular and most of the Wii owners were well quite meh. At the time though that couldn't really be ignored, and it still can't.

Right now on adverage the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of games get pretty similar sales on the whole. While with the Wii the title either is a roaring success of it just belly flops.

Point is that I really don't think these titles not being platform exclusive is actually helping any particular console shift units. After all when was the last time you heard anyone who only had one of the consoles saying "Aww I really want to play Halo 3, wish it was available for the Playsation 3!" or "Damn it if only Killzone 2 was available on my Xbox 360"

Well technically I've said the later but that's only cause I loved the first Killzone and I'll be damned if I'm spending £300 for just a handful of exclusives. No game in my mind is so good that it can't wait until reasonable price cuts, mind I'm also not one of those Wii ownered who absolutely had WiiFit... I mean seriously £60 for a game and a board to do exactly what they do down the gym for £60/year. If I wasn't gonna pay that and be social, what makes Nintendo think I'd pay it to be anti-social. Still given it's sales obviously there are alot of idiots out there who don't enjoy the real world, can't wait to see the insane sales WiiJog gets :sighs with a complete and utter contempt for how pathetic society is becoming:

Point is exclusivity only helps a console when you don't simply have the handful of exclusive titles that are big hitters. This is why the Playstation 2 just ended up snowballing. It wasn't that the other two consoles were bad, hell personally I thought the NGC was the best out of the three... it was a simple case that they hit the market first and got enough established exclusive titles out quickly that really the console snowballed as they kept that momentum going.

With the original Playstation it was more a case of technically the additional space that developers could utilise with the cheaper overall costs to the public meant that well basically it had ALL of the games everyone wanted to play.

I also don't see how it not supporting natively SD or Motion controls having hurt it at all. The Memory Units are about the same price as SD cards and given they're only used on that one system rather than all, there is never a shortage of any particular size of memory unit. I really don't know anyone who actually uses SD Memcards for well anything except Profiles, Save Games and DLC.

If the Xbox 360 had it all we'd see is more people hacking game saves using their PC is all.

As for motion control, honestly ... yeah honestly?! The Xbox 360 not having it is probably a damn good thing, in-fact I would hazard a guess the reason it hasn't happened yet is because well Live Vision, HD-DVD... I think I've made my point. Something like that only really works when a system relys upon it i.e. the Wii, but possibly more importantly is that when it works it's awesome but 90% of the time it doesn't and is just another lesson in frustrated flying controllers.

You know the ironic thing in all of this though is the iPhone/iPod Touch both have accellerometers just like the PS3 SIXAXIS, yet it works on that device and it was put in as a simple way to judge which way up the screen was rather than a full blown control method it has become. On that it works, on the Wii and PS3 sorry but it just doesn't.

The biggest issue realistically is that well it is extremely difficult to program for and get right. It was when Nintendo and Atari both first tried to introduce it in the 80s and honestly it still needs some work and good programmers sorting out the kinks for a widespread useage.

At the end of the day people prefer direct and fast responding controls to something more simple when they're playing anything but something casual.

Personally I often wonder just what sort of position the Xbox 360 would currently hold if it was never plagued with technical issues, or if they'd atleast not appeared until near the end of it's product life (like what happened with the Playstation 2 after it was released world wide)

Can't help but think that Microsoft would probably command a far stronger market position.

It would be an awesome point, were it true

1 year after Wii's release

Lead over 360 - A little under 1.2 million

Lead over PS3 - A little over 8 million

Today

Lead over 360 - A little over 19 million

Lead over PS3 - A little over 27 million

I wrote a few notes in your text, rather than quote each and every one.

The PS3 would. It would have been cheaper and it would have everything the casuals went bananas over the wii for. Naturally their pick would be the ps3. Along with the rest of us faithfuls. Wii/ps3 would also have the most games.