| reask said: But folks on this site have said many times that MS killed the XBox to get the 360 out ahead of PS3 so why would Sony not do the same? |
Well, I understand MS realised that they'd got themselves locked in on costs (particularly the HDD) with Xbox and wanted to kill it and start again with better cost control. That also fit with their goal of launching early.
From a quality control point of view they launched too early, and were pretty lucky to get past the whole RROD fiasco. In truth the 360 should probably have launched around 6 months later than it did to allow for better testing, etc. However I suspect MS knew full well that their chances of gaining momentum would take a massive knock if they only got a short timeframe lead on Sony and Nintendo so they rushed it through.
I doubt Sony will kill the PS3 because the situation is different, at least in my opinion:
1) PS3 costs are dropping and they don't have the locked in issue MS had
2) PS3 is also about BR, and it would be a bad time to pull PS3 given BR is starting to show serious life with big title sales and they are still waiting for FF 13 and GT to launch
3) Sony I'm sure have realised that in competing with MS for online US MP audience with PSN/Shooters and ignorning pretty much all their core franchises during the consoles early life they've handed Nintendo the general console audience, which is far larger than the audience for 360 (as recent figures show - even with a lower price 360 and a massive jump in sales the Wii easily matched them, showing the demand for Wii is just way higher than 360).
4) Given the difference in specs between PS3 and Wii if Sony chose to focus on a long lifetime (in a funny way I can almost believe their 10 year plan from this perspective) and ignore MS dominance in US online they could still pull back marketshare over time with the PS3 once it gets its price down (assuming Wii hasn't gobbled up the whole market by then)
On the other hand they might dump the PS3 of course - but not for another 2/3 years minimum I would suspect once BR is well established IMHO.
Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...
