PS3: What, no jokes anymore?

Two important things to notice:

1. Folks aren't bashing the PS3 as much lately on the Internet.
2. The 20GB model PS3 has been largely discontinued.
   

I've noticed that folks on the Internet aren't bothering to bash the PS3 as much anymore (heck they aren't even searching for it), and that while Sony dropped the lower-end PS3, Microsoft never had to drop their bottom-of-the-barrel XBOX 360. Why?

Well, the answer is related.

As a friend of mine pointed out, we mock the things that we are afraid our friends might buy, but consider ourselves as having enough knowledge to think that we know something they don't and should warn them. That's something humans do. We don't bother mocking things we don't think our friends will buy - for example, nobody is going around mocking Betamax today, or the NCage.

The PS3 has passed that critical point where the hardcore (those of use who read everything, delve into everything about our hobby) feel that the PS3 is no longer a viable alternative that their friends might pick up.

The thing nobody says about the 20GB PS3 being discontinued is that it's the beginning of the end for the PS3 itself. The XBOX 360 Core model never went out of production because it kept selling, even though any gamer worth his salt would go for the XBOX 360 with a Hard Drive in it.

The PS3 is pretty much the same, only those who were going to buy PS3's, have largely already done so, and the whole crowd that would make up the "core system" buyers can't, or won't, because of the price.

The PS3 is dead. It is doomed. It is on its way to Saturn land. I am no longer sure it will limp by like the N64 or the GameCube; it's possible, but the future is unclear.

Update:
Dove just made a point: developers can't make games for the PS3 and make a profit. The flagship titles that the PS3 currently has use only 20% of its power, another 80% sits idly.

To the end consumer, what they see is 80% of what they paid for - does nothing.

In order for developers to make games that used the system, they would have to spend a solid year just on development of an engine and charge up to $100 per game to the consumer.

I update my prophecies to "The PS3 will not slide by" for the simple reason that the N64 (I think) and the GC (I know) did not operate at a loss per unit. Sony has over-extended themselves, and that would have worked if the system sold, or wasn't a billion dollars, or both. And so they eat cost, and eat even more for unsold units.