I'd like to agree with you, because it makes sense, except, the people of the US rarely make sense. They spend beyond their means and their children are spoiled and get what they want. They have the world at their fingertips yet can't be bothered to research beyond facebook and what their friends tell them. People will spend the money, because ultimately it's cheaper than going out into the real world and doing something.
We will have to wait and see.
Do go back and look at the PS3 and even 360 numbers.
The PS3 sold 6 million units in the US from 2006 though 1Q 2009. That's horrendous.
Even look at 360, by the same time had sold 12+ million. Better, but not completely wonderful. But still pretty good overall.
For both, Q1 sales were horrendous, with almost all sales happening in the holiday season.
Last time neither company had enough incentive to lower prices. From Sony's perspective, they were even losing money at $599 due to jam packing it with high-end hardware for the era. From Microsoft's perspective, they had some similar hardware costs (lesser, but still high end for the era), and zero competition at their price points, so no need to lower prices. They also had 2005 through PS3 launch literally all to themselves.
This time around, both are launching at relatively high price points for the average family, in a very competitive marketplace. Both companies know that attachment rate is king. Both companies have products this time that should be
hugely less expensive to manufacture compared to last-gen launch systems. And both know the value of getting an early lead. After all, a system is more likely to sell to friends if it will match what their friends already have. It's going to be ultra competitive, and chopping prices will be on the radar very early.
I think it's somewhat inevitable that once the launch hysteria dies down, whomever is on the losing end of hardware sales going into Q1/Q2 will be the first to consider a new SKU. Their choices are :
(1) Do nothing and watch the competitor's lead grow.
(2) Drop the price and try to steal the thunder of the leader.
The only thing that will stave this off will be full sell-through of all units shipped. Once that steam runs out and they start piling up on shelves, you will see the above equation applied. It's simple cold hard economic reality, this isn't a generation like we've seen in a long time. Too hard to compare PS2 vs Xbox/Dreamcast because of the different-year launches. Too hard to compare PS3 vs 360 because of the different-year launches and vastly differing price points along with many PS3 sales simply being Bluray players.
This is a true head-to-head out of the gate.