"Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men," according to some old dead Greek guy who took a fatal swig of hemlock. The latest attempt to massage our brainwaves with persuasive oratory comes from Sony Chairman Kazuo Hirai, who reportedly told CVG the Xbox 360 "lacks longevity" and that the PlayStation 3 will eventually pull ahead.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft Director of Product Management Aaron Greenberg responded in kind to The BitBag, accusing Sony of being too "comfortable," "complacent," and focused on "hardware specs."

But Greenberg goes one further, really laying it down:

With a U.S. install base lead now of more than 7 million units (according to NPD), I can’t imagine any scenario where the PS3 can catch up with us. In fact, even if you doubled the current PS3 sales and Xbox 360 remained flat, they couldn’t close the gap until 2014.

Read that again: "Couldn't close the gap until 2014." Five years from now, and two past analyst predictions for when we'll see the next round of hardware.

No one's arguing Sony's got its work cut out with Microsoft leading by more than 2-to-1 in U.S. hardware sales.

Then again, Sony's leading 3-to-1 in Japan, and they're right behind Microsoft in cumulative system sales everywhere else.

The question is, what happens if Sony drops the PS3's price by $100 in the near term?

Would a $300 game machine with Blu-ray to boot and exclusives like God of War III, Gran Turismo 5, Heavy Rain, inFamous, MAG, Uncharted 2, and DC Universe Online tip your hand?

Matt Peckham thinks it's all about sharing the love. You can share some too at twitter.com/game_on.