I do agree that Sony fked themselves up, who wants to bet if PS3 started out as $399-$499, that it would kill Wii.

If you're going to make bold claims, the burden is on you to support them with evidence; otherwise you lose credibility.

And where's your evidence to the contrary exactly? I mean other than "me and my friends' PS2s still work." It's pretty obvious that the disc read error was a big deal.

Granted I was speaking anecdotally, but it wasn't I who made a bold, unsubstantiated claim, so I don't have to offer anything.

@ Kowe: It's Oxford, not Oxford Brookes (or maybe that was an intentional jibe); either way, I don't care for your personal attacks. Put up or shut up.

I'm with wholikeswood here. The person making the claims needs to provide the burden of proof. Not the person questioning them. Then the person questioning the claim can provide their own proof to discredit the other proof.

So you are stating something without facts or links? This is not healthy for conversation.

And how big was ps2 failure rate percentage wise is not a common knowledge, otherwise maybe you can give us a number?

No one denied it was a major issue. You were just asked for some links to support your claim and you danced around the issue until more posters started to push you.

As for your link, you can definitely infer from it that it wasn't a negligible issue since Sony did move to offer some compensation, but I still don't see any percentages or figures for the failure rate, so I guess I'll have to keep waiting...

My thoughts concerning the OP:

the current gap is 6.7 million consoles, and there is about 7 weeks left till the end of 2009. My prediction is that the minimum gap will be 5.5 million (which means the ps3 will have to outsell the 360 by 170k weekly average) and a maximum gap of 6.2 million (which means the ps3 will outsell the 360 by 70k weekly average). Here are the factors that i think will play a role:

1) the holiday boost in sales will most likely be heaviest in the US and UK, the 360's best regions
2) holiday shoppers looking for gifts will more likely choose cheaper gift options, i think the 360 arcade unit sales will take off
3)Final Fantasy 13 doesnt launch in Japan until the last 2 weeks of the year (if im not mistaken), so a prolonged spike in ps3 sales will not be accounted for in 2009
4) Microsoft is competitive and will not allow their lead to be squandered so easily, i wouldnt be suprised if we saw alot of holiday incentives like that recently offered by walmart or just better bundles (ex: forza 3 and mw2 in europe)

It will really come down to how holiday boost pans out

1. PS3 has Japan, which while it isnt as big as it once was... Still accounts for quite a lot of sales. Also, the rest of Europe are still big buyers.

2. Can't argue with that, although i think the Wii will take a big chunk out of the Arcade sales these Holidays.

3. The sales boost (on top of the usual Christmas boost) will be very big week 1, and week 2 should see next to no HW boost from FF13 as it is a very frontloaded title in Japan.

4. The same could be said of Sony. They wont want current momentum to be lost, and could also offer some very good bundles in every region.

Don't put words in my mouth, thanks.

It's not a black and white issue. I said it wasn't an insignificant issue but that doesn't by default make it a major issue.

3 plaintiffs spoke on behalf of X number of affected users. X could be a few hundred or several tens of thousands.