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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vigilance" data-source="post: 3634232" data-attributes="member: 4275">I think it's all about the games for the hardcore AV consumer. These are the people console launches are catering to by design.The big event, the waiting for days in line, the hype, the high price, for a certain type of hardcore AV consumer, these are all features not bugs. They are one of the elite few.But eventually, consoles have to appeal to a mass market beyond these people. This is why the prices fall. The 360 will not stay $400 forever. That's a sign that it needs a lower price point for a broader market presence. Also, it's about time. The PS2 had its first price drop at 20 months. The 360 has been out for 19. So Christmas this year would be about when a price drop would be expected.The PS3 is clearly realizing they were too high, thus the correction after only 8 months. They thought their brand and their hype machine (which is truly stellar if you think back to the PS-Dreamcast days, the Sony hype machine killed Sega more than the relative merits of the two consoles imo) would be enough for them to say "this is a Rolls-Royce, you know you want it, it's the elite".But the 360 was stronger than they expected, and the Wii caught Sony completely by surprise and the market they thought they would be releasing into just wasn't there. Also, the Japanese gaming market has fundamentally shifted toward casual games. This is why both the 360 and PS3 are and will continue to struggle there. Yeah, I almost wonder if Sony will at some point just stop licensing PS2 games in an attempt to force an upgrade. Right now the Wii is serving to keep the PS2 in even better shape, since a lot of Wii games are being ported to the PS2. To me, this is another sign that Sony made a huge blunder. When the PS2 was released, it seemed like time for an upgrade. But I don't think desire for a technology bump, HD, Blue Ray etc had reached anywhere near the critical mass they thought it had.Does this mean I think the 360 was a mistake too? No. MS needed to do something radical to try and further erode Sony's market share and a technology bump is a good way to do that. But the number of consumers looking to drop $400-600 dollars on a console is very, very small, certainly not enough for TWO companies to be successful there. The Wii showed that people were quite content with the PS2. Wii games look a *little* better than PS2 games and have an added sense of novelty.</blockquote>

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