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I think you'll agree that the market conditions for the PS2 and PS3 launches differ quite dramatically.
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How do you figure? They were both hyped, both late, both promised more machines than they produced, both had excellent games promised for launch but missed by a few months to a year.
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They're both going to miss the 2007 Christmas season.
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So what, if they get them right. They are still going to be great and I'm glad I have the PS3 for these games alone.
Also, resistance is a fun game to play w/ great graphics, who cares if it isn't the 'halo' of PS3, it's still great and I'm happy w/ my purchase. Not to mention I use my machine as a Linux box, dvd player, blue ray player, mp3 player and cd player for a great multimedia system.
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First and foremost, I am more of a Nintendo fanboy, but I try to be objective.
PS3 and PS2 launches were vastly different. PS2 was launched BEFORE the other two consoles, not late as you said. The PS2 got off to the best start in video game history with an enormous launch and basically won the console race that generation before it even started.
This time around PS3 is coming late to the party with stronger competition from Xbox. It's launch was mostly successful, but nothing like PS2 and sales are rapidly dropping off.
Now I'm not saying that PS3 isn't going to be great and have some fantastic games at one point, but the same could be said of N64 which was considered a failure by many. You personally may enjoy the console like I enjoyed my N64, but it could still have horrible implications for Sony and its future in this business. I hope they do well so that competition remains strong, but I have serious doubts.
The problem lies in the downward spiral effect. You need to sell consoles to attract developers and keep them around. You also need to sell consoles so you have a large installer base and can drop the price of the console. The PS3 really needs to drop the price, but cannot because they are losing approx. $200 per console sold. They are starting to really lag in sales, some developers are making decisions to switch away from or make things non exclusive and then less people are attracted. Less people buy, the console can't drop in price as fast, less people buy, less developers. Death spiral.
PS3 still has plenty of time to pull out of the spiral, but at the moment it just doesn't look that good. Hardware sales, software sales and developers all show trends in the industry that tell a story of whats going on. Things in all three catagories are starting to show struggle [not enormous, but some]. Nintendo, on the other hand, as an example, is showing positives in all three of these areas. Sales are going up, people are buying more, more developers are jumping on and they can definitely drop the price as soon as they want to. Things can certainly change, but if history is an indicator, reversing trends in the video game industry can be very very difficult in one generation. Those killer apps coming out later rather than sooner may be too late if the death spiral is in full gear.
I hope that all consoles do well though for the sake of an industry I really like and am interested in.
edit to add:
http://www.vgchartz.com is the best source I have found for looking up all these sales numbers and such.