2 responses
I'm wondering if they have both answers ready to go. If there isn't a big uproar don't provide the compatibility and save some amount of money on the console production. If there is, provide it and eat the costs.
I'd love to see some analysis on the decision criteria that factor into the purchase decision for a console. Someone's done the conjoint analysis and knows the answer somewhere. I wonder how important backwards compatibility is for console buyers?

I would guess "not very important," but I've got no proof one way or the other. With 16% market share for the Xbox and 70% for PS2, it doesn't seem like a compelling reason to build back-compat into the 360. Early adopters aren't buying the machine for back-compat, I'll bet. AND, they're likely to have their old Xbox to boot. I'd guess that there are about 2 people out there who are going to say "Forget Xbox 360, I'll buy PS3 instead."