Your opinions do not equal what the "world" thinks.

Developers fully supported PlayStation 2 indeed. Xbox could have better graphics and sounds, but this is business: program for the lowest spec, and then port to the other one. That is why Xbox games look like PlayStation 2.

This is one of the first things Sony did right: applying Sega slogan to Nintendo and Sega itself.

GameCube was a very powerful console, however developers never really cared to learn how to correctly use its power. Resident Evil 4 is considered the best game of the last generation, and it was released for GameCube. To concentrate on a platform, either the platform must have a huge install base (so huge that sales in that platform alone would be higher than combining the other consoles), or pact a deal with the console maker (what Nintendo did with Capcom).

We can expect first and second party titles to be launched on PlayStation 3. However, third party support will be slower. SNK already stated they won't be developing until 2009, and Eidos does not plan anything until 2008. I doubt Konami or Square Enix will launch their most expected titles this year (especially considering Dragon Quest IX is launching this year). Titles that were expected to sell in Japan, like Gundam Musou, disappeared from chart after selling 300,000 or so copies (remember, its developer, Namco, stated they needed 500,000 to cover costs, so they will think it twice before putting costly exclusives again). Titles like Virtua Fighter 5 are being ported to Xbox 360 because of the small install base. And this created an egg-chicken paradox: without appealing games, the console won't sell, but without consoles, developers won't put heavy hits. Only Sony can break it, either by signing exclusives or launching appealing first party games.

I am confident PlayStation 3 will get very good games. But don't expect PS3 to get 70% of share market this generation. Sony has never lowered the price of a console (not even the PSP) before 18 months, yet they introduced a price cut in Japan before even launching (which did not work at all). Again, this is business, and right now, PS3 bleeds money.

I will create a new thread on the first days of October, let's see how things are doing by then.

AFAIA, the playstation systems have always been the weakest of the competition for one simple reasoning: they were out well before the competition, so the competition has slightly more opportunity to pick newer/better hardware components. This is not to say the playstation hardware was crap, just that it didn't stack up again the competition for their respective generations (the GC was on par with and possibly edged out the XBox, which you admit was better, in terms of power, than the PS2). The PS2 had a faster fillrate for the simple reason its hardware couldn't do as much.. much the same reason the PSX had a better fillrate than the N64: the N64 had perspective correct texture mapping with bilinear filtering and mipmapping, and the PSX didn't so it didn't have to "waste" processor cycles on it.

If you notice this generation, the PS3 has the edge in terms of hardware, and was out later than the competition (ignoring Nintendo, who purposely didn't pick "powerful" hardware components this time around).

I think it's silly that so many people claim that Wii is no good for 'hardcore gamers'.
I spend many hours every day playing games (it's hurtful to say specifically how many), so I expect that I'd fall into this 'hardcore gamers' category. I see the Wii has being the most appropriate console for people like me. It's breath of fresh air. It offers new ways to play new games. The other consoles may be more powerful, that basically means that they can have fancier graphics. But graphics are not what gaming is about. Good graphics are certainly a good thing, but I don't play games to look at the pictures; and besides, good graphics != highest number of polygons.
I'd rather spend my large number of gaming hours on games I've not played before than on the remakes of old ideas with new graphics.

As for the PS3 being "a cheap blu-ray player"; that's only a useful argument if we were intending to buy a blu-ray player anyway. When I buy a game console, I don't necessary want to pay a bucket load of extra cash for a blu-ray player or whatever other 'cool features' the PS3 claims to have. I don't want to pay for things that I didn't want to buy.

Guess this thread is finished. Let's wait until October then.