It's funny how when I think of Sony as a brand, it's Walkman that pops into my head first, not PlayStation. I guess maybe it's a function of age, but it is my feeling that the Walkman permeated pop culture and the marketplace far, far more significantly and in much greater volume than the PlayStation ever did. Think iPod circa 1981 and you'll about get how huge it was.
So when I think about losing faith in the Sony brand, it's hard to consider PlayStation in a vacuum, because I think back over the history of the company (Walkman, BetaMax, Playstation, Bravia, Blu-Ray), and to be honest, if one considers their business decisions as a whole, they're about 33% genius (Walkman, PS, PS2), 33% eh, not too shabby (PSP, computers, TVs) and 33% disaster (BetaMax, PS3 up to this point).
Note that I didn't put Blu-Ray in any category. It's because to be honest, the jury is WAY out on that topic, and we probably won't have a definitive answer until significantly higher adoption ratios affect the marketplace. Still, one thing to keep in mind is even with Blu-Ray significantly hampering PS3's home console market penetration, it's still a very solid strategy to eventually win the Blu-Ray adoption war. Every person who buys a PS3 as a video game player is one less person who is going to buy a HD-DVD.
Now I know we've heard this over and over and over and over, and I would rather listen to Dolly Parton sing Nirvana covers than start yet another HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray flame war. However, it is obvious that Sony is banking on the synergy of HDTV adoption, Blu-Ray adoption, and PS3 adoption to eventually weather this storm. Why? It's the only true trump card they have over their competitors at this point. However, it has not been conclusively proven that this is not a good strategy.
When Ken Kutaragi told the world that he expected us all to get a second job so that we could afford the PS3 I'm sure I wasn't alone in wanting to hit him in the face. It was at that point that I thought to myself, "Oh my god.... PlayStation is going to tank this generation." So Sony completely misread initial marketplace demand for PS3, no doubt about that. And thus, the price point was an unmitigated disaster. Now Sony has taken steps to fix that with the 40GB SKU. One would think it would work.
Yes, Sony is going to lose third-party support this generation as compared to third-party support last gen. How could they not? How much third-party support did PS2 own... 80% of third-party resources? Maybe higher? There was nowhere but down for Sony to go in this part of the equation. Does this mean that "OMGZ SOoNY IZ DOOOOMD!" ?? Nah. Sony made it past BetaMax, they'll make it past flagging third-party support.
Let's be honest though, the question on everyone's mind isn't "How will Sony as a company make it through these trying times? The question on PS3 owners' minds is "Did I spend F@&*!&G 600 dollars last F@&*!&G year for this F@&*!&G technological masterpiece just to see it become another F@&*!&G Dreamcast?" The short answer is, PS3 has significantly more support both in the marketplace and in software support than Dreamcast ever did, even lagging as significantly as it is currently behind the Wii and the 360. Don't worry, you're not going to wake up tomorrow morning and find that the only things available for purchase are "ET: Constantly Running From Scientists Is Fun!" and "Superman 64: PS3 Edition." There will be games available.
It's all about buyer's remorse in the end, or lack thereof. Did you get value equivalent to the financial resources you put in? If you did, then you win. If not, you lose. You have to make that decision for yourself. My advice for generation 8 (Coming to a EB near you in 2012!) would be, for the love of God, don't be an early adopter, especially when you know that the bulk of the great games for any console are going to come out 2 years after the console hits the market.
Oh yeah. Will Sony come out on top this generation? Will it beat the issues it faces at this point? I have no clue, but here's a personal anecdote. I was at a party the other night and one of my friends has just bought a new 42-inch plasma HDTV. They were telling us about how much they spent for HD Tivo, HD Direct TV, a new surround sound system, etc. I asked them, "So, did you get an HD-DVD or a Blu-Ray player?" They immediately started shaking their heads, talking about how unsure they were, given the format war, of a product that they didn't know would be viable in a few years. They were like "Well, we'll wait it out, and once the format war pans out, then we'll buy that." This was a couple who had just spent in excess of $2500 for their HD setup, so money was not an option. They just wanted to make sure that weren't going to be burnt on hardware in the future. No one likes to feel like a stupid consumer.
The moral here is that there's a distinct possibility that people like my friends will pick the 360 over the PS3 for their video game needs, even with the PS3 price cut. Why? The uncertainty over the industry's adoption of Blu-Ray over HD-DVD or digital transfer in the future. No one wants to be a stupid consumer. I don't want to sound like an old fogey at 34 (good god!), but something that the 14-21 age group simply doesn't realize in this debate is that those of us over 25 remember the BetaMax fiasco very well, and we all remember that it was Sony's name enblazoned on it and that Sony lost... BIG time. I think the Blu-Ray dependence, coupled with the uncertainty factor in early HDTV adopters on the whole Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war, could cause a continued lag in PS3 sales even now that no amount of price cuts will overcome. Why? No one likes to feel like a stupid consumer.
I know this is stuff that has been argued over ad infinitum around here, but I thought it might be illuminating to revisit in the light of Sony fans feeling uneasy. As for me, I still think to myself whenever I hear the concept of a Sony fanboy, "How in the hell do you get so attached to your Walkman?" But that's me, age 34. At least I'm still built like a 25-year-old athlete... LOL!
Edit: typos and an attempt to turn a really bad double negative into a slightly less bad double negative.