Is this game over for Sony?

[DreamsCast]

Well firstly we need to seperate this into America / Europe and Japan. In the West, PS3 will do well. It won't reach PS2 levels but it will still do ok. Madden, GTA, EA games in general etc will keep the console strong. However, people comparing to X360 launch and saying PS3 is better are missing a couple of points. 1. It is only marginally better, and only due to having more units available 2. The 360 has a 12 month head start. Now you may not think that means much (around 4m in actual units in the US) but it is significant. In that time, Microsoft have been able to build a strong reputation and some great exclusives. There are now loads of strong titles on the way for 360 and sales will just grow. You have to compare the situation as it stands now - a developer is more likely to take their big exclusive title to 360 than PS3. Same happened with PS1 and N64 - N64 launched much stronger and almost caught up with PS1 totals in just 3-4 months. The difference was that despite massive hit after hit from Nintendo, Sony had many many more games out in 97-98. Most of which were not in the same league at the big N64 titles, but the sheer volume and variety from having 12 months head start and many more games in the pipeline was enough. This time around, PS3 doesn't even have the stellar lineup the N64 had and 360 is arguably in a stronger position that PS1 was when N64 launched. Ps3 will do well in the west, but 360 will be number 1 (unless Wii really does the business here as well). Japan is another story alltogether. Here PS3 has sold less in 2 months than PS2 did in the first day, and it is not a supply issue. Over the last 2 years, Japan more than any other region has seen a massive shift with the success of the DS and Nintendo in general. Sales in Japan have been declining for the last 7-8 years until 2006. Wii looks to continue the same philosophy as the DS with innovative, different games while PS3 offers little over PS2 at this point for Japanese gamers other than FF XIII. In Japan, PS3 stand no chance at reaching 20m levels, 6-7m looking more likely at the moment - about on par with N64 and Saturn. Unfortunately, as others have noted, Sony are making the same mistakes with PS3 as PSP. The price, the blatant attempt to push Blu-Ray by using their large gaming audience (as with UMD), a general lack of innovation in the upcoming titles (with the exception of Resistance and a couple of others). They are abandoning everything that made the PS1 a success in the first place - affordable price, easy to develop for, welcoming to 3rd parties, large variety of games, innovative new directions for gaming. Sony are in trouble. For a company who have so effortlessly dominated the home console market for the last 10 years things are looking very bad.