You might want to check my analysis of the Need For Speed Series
http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=7920
EA has been consistently losing sales since they they started developing Next-Gen versions of NFS. NFS:Carbon with 3 Next-Gen versions (is the Wii Next-Gen ??) was the worst performer and failed to hold on to the PS2 market share, because EA's dev teams were more interested in making a better 360/PS3 game they forgot to improve their Bread & Butter PS2 version.

@ johnlucas

While some of your points maybe rational, I deem the entire thing pointless.

Increasing competition in a free market benefits the consumer. I thank Microsoft for some great gaming experiences these last couple years. Sony fans at the very least should tank MS for the recent ps3 price cut in Europe. The market is working.

Well remember, the Play Station was originally a Nintendo idea. Only because of the fall out between Sony and Nintendo did this system not come to pass under Nintendo's reign.

From good ol' Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_station

"According to the book "Game Over", by David Scheff, the first conceptions of the PlayStation date back to 1986. Nintendo had been attempting to work with disk technology since the Famicom, but the medium had problems. Its rewritable magnetic nature could be easily erased (thus leading to a lack of durability), and the disks were a piracy danger. Consequently, when details of CDROM/XA (an extension of the CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio, visual and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously) came out, Nintendo was interested. CD-ROM/XA was being simultaneously developed by Sony and Phillips. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "SNES-CD". A contract was struck, and work began. Nintendo's choice of Sony was due to a prior dealing: Ken Kutaragi, the person who would later be dubbed "The Father of PlayStation", was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the eight-channel ADPCM sound synthesis set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities."

"In 1989, the SNES-CD was to be announced at the June Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realized that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi was furious; deeming the contract totally unacceptable, he secretly canceled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. Indeed, instead of announcing their partnership, at 9 a.m. the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that they were now allied with Philips, and were planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had, unbeknown to Sony, flown to Philips headquarters in Europe and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines."

Oh & yes this is why I only say MS brought an INTEGRATED network play experience to consoles. Networked play has been done many times before most specifically by Sega who Microsoft learned the game from in the first place. Microsoft made it more fused within the system design, more centralized. Yes XBox Live was more a progression but they added some unique quirks to make online stick a little better.

John Lucas

Yes I would say that MS and Sony are as bad as each other. Maybe people expect more from Sony, I mean we all knew MS were evil anyway.

I think Sony perhaps have a worst PR department and dont communicate there plans in a coordinated way.

 O man what incredible games are you talking about!?! Which one of their releases in the past full whole year, other than Resistance has acheived a score greater than 7.5?

 As far as Microsoft "all but stop caring"about backward compatibility, I think you should probably rethink that one... they MAY have lost some desire to make it happen as of the very recent moment, but they have regularly updated the BC list and added games... That las update was July something of this year which added or updated approximately 61 games.  Only a handful of those were updates -- the rest were new games added to the list.  Link:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm

We'll see if they continue to add to the list over time, but for now, I'd say it is an "earnest" effort to make BC happen on a broad range of titles. 

As far as multiple SKUs, Microsoft has taken plenty of heat for having so many variations... look around the web a bit more.  Now Sony is doing it and it is their turn to draw scorn.

Make no mistake... Microsoft has taken plenty of heat for myriad issues such as RRoD, Multiple SKUs, non 100% backward compatibility when BC was a selling point at launch, and so on.  The point is that these arguments have been beaten to death and are stale.  Now it's Sony's turn in the grist mill.  Unfortnately, that seems to be how the media works...  like a pack of rabid dogs... 

I have no issue with Sony releasing multiple skews. Offering choice to the consumer - especially at a lower price point - is always a good idea, and a solid way to boost sales.

But when you start doing it by releasing crippled versions of your console - I get worried. Especially in the first year of release of a "10-year" life cycle.

And even more so, when what you are dropping is (enhanced!) software support for the most successful console in history. Dropping GC or XBOX support would be bad - but only 20%-30% as bad as dropping PS2 support.

The 360 "Core" model can be extended. HDMI/no-HDMI is a valid option IMO - although in the future, HDMI is more than likely to become the standard.

...

Imagine if Ninty would release a smaller, cheaper version of the Wii - without "channel" support. Its still a Wii, still plays Wii games - its cheaper and more accessible - but its just not as good.