joe: Sorry, ambiguous phrasing. I meant their first console (the 2600) was successful while the 5200 and the 7800 failed.
If Sony lost half of their customers that would still make them #1, yes, but those customers would go elsewhere and kill their absolute majority.
Sony's mistake could be alienating third parties, too. ow did Nintendo turn them off? They enforced strict rules on who may and who may not publish on their systems, Sony is now doig the same and I have a feeling most third parties would rather see MS "We give ya money hats, come here!" on top. MS is the only one of the big three that doesn't have a history of ironfist rule yet (well, when it comes to games, at least). As far as predicions go, MS has a serious chance against Sony. A good Rev launch should put Nintendo back into the ring and make for a really interesting fight. After all, the Rev is going to be different, it has the chance of doing the same as the DS.
Hm, the Box is eating a billion a year, right (and MS is already complaining about missiong a billion a year since 2001 and cut employee benefits to compensate)? Imagine what if the thing had five to ten times the sales, MS would lose between 5-10 billion dollars a year, that'd be a disaster not even their OS and Office divisions could compensate for. Well, okay, they've learned their lesson, the Xenon won't be as bad in losing money, but they stated they're in for the long run when asked about the profitability of the Xenon.
Nintendo could make a comeback if the Rev is perceived as coming more after the DS than the Cube. If they're doing the same all-out style launch for the Rev they're going to get a boost next gen, let's just hope they don't give up the Rev like they did the Cube.