It appears that the trend has been set, and will likely parallel the game industry’s predictions: Xbox 360 will be king, Nintendo’s Wii will take back second place, and the Playstation 3 will take third place. Coming in last is not what Sony has counted on to remain profitable.
Industry analysts can easily say that the first one to market will be the console king of that generation, but that’s not necessarily true. Remember the Sega Dramcast? It was a next-generation product and came out a full year before the Playstation 2, but Sony conquered with an excellent game lineup and market strategy. Sony was able to overcome the odds, and squash the dreams of the industry king.
The odds are stacked against Sony’s favor, and the tables have turned. Sony has made several mistakes that have strained the loyalty of gamers, including Sony fanboys. There are too many things that can go wrong (and are starting to reveal themselves).
- Sony promised a Spring, 2006 world-wide launch. Sony was unable to meet production demand, and pushed the launch back to the fall, in only the biggest markets, and in very limited numbers. This prediction has already come to pass.
- Sony is launching a new online service to couple the new console. Sony has never before tried an online gaming network of this magnitude. Sony promised online gaming with the Playstation 2, which was a complete failure. Sony’s own Everquest 2 failed in comparison to other online competitors.
- Sony is introducing a new high-definition format. Sony’s Blu-Ray technology is contested by another format, HD-DVD, which has much greater brand recognition and has no production issues. The quicker the user-base is established, the sooner we will know who will come out on top. Many studios are not keen on producing two high-definition DVD formats, so only Sony’s partners are producing Blu-Ray disks. Bad news for consumers.
- Weak launch lineup. Out of the many games available for the PS3 on launch day, only 3 are Playstation 3 exclusives. The only other exclusive titles are Resident Evil 5, Final Fantasy 13, and Grand Turismo HD.
- An exorbitantly expensive system. A $600 console? Even the cheap version is $100 more expensive than Microsoft’s premium Xbox 360 system. Sony doesn’t want to take a loss, and rightly so… but Microsoft is taking a 50% loss on every console sold. Sony started the race late, and the only way to have a chance at winning is to get consoles in the hands of gamers as soon as possible. Because of the low production and high price, only die-hard Sony fanboys are interested in the console. Everyone else is turning to the Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii.
