Steve 3.2: For some people, this race will be "too early to call" until well after the future generation takes over... The console world is rather very unforgiving, I think the outcome is already clear. Yes, Sony really does require a reason for people to buy their machine. Any reason will do really, they don't seem to have one at the moment- and they don't seem to realize that might be their problem. There isn't enough overlap in the individual markets they're targeting to justify the purchase for most peope (would you buy a combination wood lathe, photocopier, and assault rifle? I don't think many people would...) The PS3 isn't going to drop in price notably... It'd be suicide, on a level even beyond what they're already doing. This option has been beaten to death, it's not any more viable now than when the first person suggested the PS3 would price-drop like "all the other consoles have" I don't think HD is really much of a driving force, or that it will be for anything but a very small portion of the population (the vast majority of people are seriously too stupid or ignorant to connect the cables properly, or perhaps even recognize the difference between SD and HD), though I do agree that downloadable content could take off in a big way. The wii has never aspired to be a media device though, and people generally recognize that when they buy it. (Or I'd think it's pretty obvious anyway.) And, with cable / satellite networks increasingly pushing their DVR boxes, that seems like a more likely conduit for the aforementioned downloadable content than a game console, at least for most people. As such, I highly doubt there will be any sort of notable upgrade to the Wii during it's lifetime You make several very good points; I just don't entirely agree....

Yes, the 360 is doing solid overall in North America. The problem, however, is both the audience target AND the fact that European sales are mediocre at best with japan virtually non-existant. As bad as the hardcore audience looks at the Wii, the reversed can be said of the 360 AND the PS3 with the casual/nongamer audience. Between Wii Sports, Big Brain Academy, MySims, and who knows what else in store for this year BESIDES the wiimote's drawing power (ease of use for simpler games), the 360/PS3 have no real chance of "breaking" into this crowd with just a price drop. Currently the PS3 and 360 are targetting the same hardcore crowd, with casuals as a bonus for some time. The Wii is targetting non-gamers, casual gamers, former gamers, and THEN the hardcore last, thus why most "hardcore" gamers have grown tired of it. If the Wii grabs a majorty of the "light gamer" market while being a nice 2nd console to the "hardcore" market and/or those on a budget (me!), the Wii will easily be sitting on top this gen. And guess what is happening so far? :)

Just remember to split the sales of those multi-platform games that the PS3 shares with the 360. The more the 360 and PS3 struggle with each other over multi platform games is to the benefit of the Wii. ^_^ The more this happens, the more I think it was a smart choice for Nintendo not to have an expensive HD console to compete with the PS3/360. Yep, the PS3 has a ton of games announced for it. They also have the most game cancellations, while the Wii has the most game announcements this year, more than PS3/360 combined. Looking at the release list, this won't change before July in North America or Japan at least. We'll have to wait and see with Europe. :)

PS360 is a strict waste of money, 90% of their library is identical to each other. "On a budget" and "don't care about cost", huh.