I honestly don't think significantly matters at all. The only time more powerful console has sold more was when it was cheaper. Every other time handheld or home it's lost handedly to the weaker cheaper alternative aside from the wii u. There's simply no data to support this.
Yes, but every time a significantly weaker competitor has won, it's been because it's had a USP which made up for the lack of power. Plus, we're only talking about the Wii, DS and 3DS here.
When we're talking about the consoles targeted at the
gamer demographic, the reason there is no data to support my case is that there has never been a situation where the two consoles aimed at that demographic have not been close power-wise.
Yeah, the power argument falls flat with a cursory look at historical. Always has been a combination of price, postioning, timing, distribution, content... if it was only one thing that drove sales everyone would be trying to focus on that one thing.
I agree that there is more than one factor which decides the winner, but just look at how damaging to the Xbox brand the whole 900p vs 1080p thing was early on this generation.
The fact that we've never had a situation where one console is significantly more powerful means historical data is meaningless.
Are you aware of any research which looks at attitudes to console power vs price and at which point it starts to affect purchasing decisions?
Let's say next generation the PS5 is a slight step up but the Xbox is a full generational leap ahead and there are noticeable performance differences and major difficulties in porting games. What does the research say consumers will do?