@The.
There are ways of measuring the value of one system over the other, but no really good one. Price is a barrier to consumers, and they will only purchase the product if they feel its value is higher than the price. But that's not what I went into this discussion talking about.

You made the assumption that everyone will see buying an xbox or a ps3 as a choice of features. I pointed out that you forgot the values, and that your reasoning is therefore flawed. Any conclusions you make on that reasoning must then be suspect.

On the other hand, it sounds as if you made your conclusions first and added the reasoning afterwards. But that's ok. Everyone does that. Including me. All I want is to add some perspective to your way of thinking.

^I never intended to say features are all that matter, so I don't see anything wrong in my reasoning, since the price has been proven to be very relevant in the HD console war. I wouldn't go into analyzing game libraries, and gamer's taste, or any other advantages or disadvantages. I went to the bottom line: which one gives me more for my hard-earned money? You may argue many people just appreciate their "cross game chatting" that much, or they'd rather have the same system as their friends Jimmy and Timmy. You must remember new consumers don't value these things as much as the experienced owners, 'cause they just never owned the console before, so they wouldn't know what works best between Live or PSN besides what they heard from word of mouth, but the bottom line is they have to PAY EXTRA (for Live Gold and all it brings).

I'm well aware of the intagibles, but the tangibles are what anyone can see, and they weigh quite much in this comparison.

edited.

I'm going to pluck your eyeballs from your head... I'm looking at the games you play and wondering how could you not want head tracking with Natal?  How is using Natal to enhance your games "defeating the purpose"?

This is simply not the case during the Holidays... during the Christmas Season the Arcade probably doubled the sales of the Pro if not tripled.  I don't see the PS3Slim closing the gap by very much and next year it's likely to go back up when the pent up demand goes away... especially if the economy doesn't get a boost.  Three hundred dollars is still expensive

We can only guess. the arcade has only been selling fast when it dropped to 199.99 last year. We will se what happens this year with all 3 systems very close in price.

You want to know he tangibles for a person who is jumping into the HD console market... 200 buck vs 300 bucks... that's the tangible.  They are not looking for a BR player... they can go and get one for way cheaper than the PS3 if that's what they want... they want a gaming console and the 360 gives them almost every game the PS3 has and is a hundred dollar less... and maybe later he'll pick up a 120 gig HDD or a wifi adapter if he needs them, but the initial price is always going to be the most important tangible aspect of any purchase from poeple who are not gamers like us

I never said it wouldnt be good, or that i wouldnt want it.

I just said, it would defeat the purpose of Natal, controller free gaming.

we can only guess, but if you worked at retail last year it wasn't hard to see... there is a reason the 360 crushed the PS3 last year and being under 200 was it... I wonder if it can post good number this year... it may be the first Christmas they had a decrease YoY

^I'm betting people value more what they get for their money, that's all I'm saying. Yeah, $200 is dirt cheap, but if that what's the end of it all, then the Arcade would be the top selling console right now, and it's not. So even those who haven't jumped into HD gaming consider things like FEATURES, after all if they're getting into gaming wouldn't they eventually want to get into this "online gaming thing" and download stuff and whatnot. A Do-nothing-of-those-things-for-$200 Arcade is not the answer for many of these people, when they factor in $50 extra every year and no HDD, which means even if they get free Silver X-Live they can't even download a freaking demo for free!

The reason the Arcade does so much better at Christmas is because it is an easier gift to give. It lets grandma pickup a present for a nephew. Grandma doesnt give a rats ass about blu-ray. This is more important during Christmas than it is during the rest of the year. That is why the ratio of Arcade to Elite/Pro last holiday was so different.