What does "Sony's year" mean?
Financially, it will be a disaster for the company as a whole. Due to the strong Yen, look out for a $1.5b+ loss reported at the end of January for the holiday quarter (not just my estimates, also based on Sony's CFO declarations and their revenue combined with profit margins). A $2.5 billion loss is not out of the question depending on their electronics sales performance throughout the holidays (Japanese electronics exports as a whole declined 25% in November if I remember correctly).
All this financial mayhem will mean that price cuts will be hard to stomach. I can see price cuts happening if the Yen weakens though, which would be a positive for 2009. However, it will still be hard for the PS3 to outsell the 360 this year before the holiday season. In the holiday season, any PS3 price cut may well be accompanied by a 360 price cut (halving 360's price 4 years after launch doesn't look very extreme considering a $100 PS3 price cut would mean a halved price 2-3 years after launch).
In short, I don't see any significant way in which 2009 is geared to be Sony's year. In fact in many ways it may be Sony's worst year in quite a long time.
My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957
