I'm not going to argue any further. I'll just say that the XO ended up costing $200, while there are a few $200 netbooks. I know the intention wasn't the same, which is why I said their marketing was unsuccessgful: they had the wrong idea about how to sell them.

Um they need much more than hardware, they need both retailer and third party support and convince the consumers that they are legit. Its a chicken/egg thing but much more complicated

Asus probably wouldn't last in such a cutthroat market. They'd be up against 3 of the largest companies in the world...unless they stole the mario franchise :o

They should partner up with another third party to work on this thing. Wasn't there rumours about an EA console, or something like that?

Its too late for other companies to get into the gaming industry. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft already are set.

Forget a console. Get into the handled scene Asus. Its only two players in that market and Microsoft is not entering that scene.

Microsoft showed its never too late if you have a good product and are willing to push it hard enough.  It can be done.  That's not to say ASUS is the company to do it.  Id rather they focused their efforts on better net/notebooks, motherboards, and gadgets.

They're making the same mistake that has doomed console manufacturers over and over. They think "If we can make a Wiimote that's better than the Wiimote, we'll win tons of money!" The fidelity of the technology isn't nearly as important as making fun games. Asus can't make better games than Nintendo, Sony, and MS.

They could content themselves with HW profits, as they always did, and launch a royalty-free Linux-based gaming environment, just more powerful and HW feature-rich than all those done up until now.

It's think it's more likely their console to be PC-based, like the console that's being released by Onlive. It certainly would make alot more sense.