Personally I think the latest release of wavetable plugins is hitting the Virus and CPU advancements has bought the playign field upto a reasonably competitive level. In regards to price there's a lot of currency changes as european currencies weaken vs the USD and with the aforementioned competition, price drops are innevitable. Elektron recently dropped the price of their AK's recently.
I still dispute for live artist's, performance producers, hardware fanatics and knob twiddlers that the hardware will disappear. Too much of a revival market at present, look at the recent releases in the analogue field from Korg, DSI, Elektron, Moog, MFB and the digital Rolands Aira range.
I think the best and nearest competitor to Virus has to be Serum in the plugin world, however I still wouldn't sell the Virus.
I'm hoping Access are going to bring us something different than a Virus TI3, wouldn't be surprised if we see a wavetable/analogue hybrid with some juicy filters...we live and hope
Just wish Elektron would hurry up with Overbridge, adding overbirdge as plugins to join hands with the virus is all I am currently waiting on