The PS3 did really well with teh slim, it's not often that you will be able to drastically cut down on the manufacturing cost for electronics, and sony made a bigger reduction in the build costs than a normal die shrink would do, so they are living large now.

MS seems to be doing two things right now to add more value-
a. Natal - I think that it's going to go nowhere
b. Price cut- this is where MS has more room, I mean they've made a decent profit for a while now, so they definitely have some room to cut the price. The only reason why dont want to now, is that they will look weak for doing so, most electronics companies dont cut prices right after it already did that. So, MS might want to wait a few months before it does that, to say april or may.

It's all about the games, the PS3 is at the right price point now for the features that it offers. Sony need to push a quality line up next year to really drive install base and I think they'll be able to do that with relative ease as they have in the past two years.

What Nintendo proves with the Wii is that Sony don't know squat in comparison. They made more money in one year than Sony did with the Playstation 1/2 combined. What does that prove? It proves that Sony doesn't know what to do with a winning hand so how can anyone assume they know how to turn around a losing one? I don't need to wait 2 years for anything. If they come in at the end of financial year 2010 with over $1B in losses again then what have they proved to us exactly?

Sq- You do realize that teh 360 is going to have to make a price cut, right? What do you think that will do to the profits?

MS is in line for a big reduction in profits, mabey -40% or -50% if they have to make a big price cut.

This thread has nothing to do with Microsofts Xbox 360 strategy, but I'll answer you anyway.

1. They would not need to do more than a 25% price cut at worst. That would do just fine for increasing hardware sales if they thought they needed to. So Arcade down to $149 is the lowest it would absolutely need to go and the Elite would not really go much lower than $230 or so to keep at least an $80 price difference between the two SKUs.

2. Even if they do a price cut their present margins on hardware are probably better than Sony's and they have far higher non hardware revenues from software, accessories and Live subscriptions and content. If they are making $150M a quarter profit on average now and they could subsidise their hardware (600M / 12M consoles sold = $50 per console) and thats not taking into consideration any extra accessory, Live or software sales.

No one's going to laugh or call you crazzy. They're just going to roll they're eyes and call you a fanboy.

WTF!?

So genius, maybe you should write a letter to Kojima and explain to him what he got wrong with Metal Gear Solid 4.

Then, you can give Naughty Dog a ring and say: "Whatsup guys, Uncharted2 looked good, but you guys just don't get gaming.

Then when you're feeling really naff about the good work you're doing you can go on down to the Netherlands and tell the 140 people at Guerrilla exactly why Halo3 is better than Killzone2.

ahh...

Isn't it?

I thought it was...

Just for the record Gran Turismo is a bigger franchise than Halo. This gen Sony have made lots of new ip's rather churning out sequels. Of those new ip's Uncharted 2 looks like it could be a 5million seller. LBP has massive legs and looks like another premier franchise. And lot of 1, 2 million sellers. And established ip's which will start hitting next year. MS put all there efforts into 1 or 2 titles with huge marketing campaigns etc while Sony instead go for the quantity/diversity as there killer.

LOL