I think Sony's problems in America might not have anything to do with the economy. I'm sure it's not helping but I think one problem may be that the market simply isn't big enough for 3 competitors doing well. In an expanding market such as E/O it's quite capable but America isn't expanding like that market is. I mean it is expanding but not at those rates. Thus we see the dominant force as Wii tapping into the core, the mainstream, and the expanded audience while MS cleans up a good bit of the rest of the core and mainstream. This leaves very little for Sony and the PS3 to claim. And of course that would be severely tightened in our crisis but it happened before this.
And really I don't know if there was much Sony could have done about it for this year because apparently they couldn't do anymore. And they may have been able to have shafted 360 in America if it wasn't for the economy. So I guess it's a bigger role than I give it credit for but I would think this would be the reasoning. Now possibly down the road in a year or 2 it has a better shot but it's lost 2009 in America simply because of those reasons. And if it wants a chance to get a bigger market share then it needs 360 to fade off and Wii to wane down and to pick up the pieces. Not to mention a lower price.
I think what's good though isn't getting the piece GC was getting last year comparatively considering how well PS2 was cleaning up. Shows you that the market has expanded enough where it doesn't get those numbers. Very lucky on that aspect.
So I guess we'll let Sony slide through the holidays in America and hope it gets enough out of Europe and Japan to still do quite well. And then we'll see how it does in 2009 with an inevitable pricedrop and big game releases.
