SHOCKIE said:
That complete fanbase you speak of,seems to get smaller each generation.
true, but that's not entirely the point. I have to apologize for my bad wording. Let me try it one last time
Nintendo machines are bought for the primary purpose of playing Nintendo games. Everything else is secondary (DVD-playback and what not... personally I like that Nintendo tries to stay game centric). That is the 15 million cubes out there most likely relate to 15 million "Nintendo-branded" consumers, that have a very high probability of getting the Rev.
Of the 15 million Xboxs owners can you truely say that the quasi-totality have one because they want the "Microsoft-brand"? XBL only makes a small part of that. Better graphics, HD-features, DVD-features all contribute to that user-base, but are these things intrinsically Microsoft? What is to keep Sony from implemeting a great online-network, HD-features and Blu-Ray features, etc. in PS3.
Sony & Microsoft have the same audience, and for Microsoft to gain market share from Sony they have to convince former PS-users, that is users that now look for Sony-brand in addition to extra features.
Damn I'm bad at this (prolly why I don't post much). So in essence for Sony to match or better what Microsoft offers on a hardware-feature base (includes HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, online-net, gfx performance, etc.) is more damaging to Microsoft than it would for example be to Nintendo. Because once you remove all those features that are very likely to be in both platforms the differences are marginal, the basic appeal is the same. So you have 70 million PS-influenced against 15 million XB-influenced.
I believe someone once posted a sales graph that depicted how XB sales influenced PS sales and vice-versa, where the Cube stayed constant, albeit a relatively small constant.
Hardware will definately have a greater influence over directing consumers to go with PS3 or rather Xenon than it will to decide for Rev.