What if Sony was the victim of its customer base ?

[HappySqurriel]

I would call it "Squeaky Wheel Syndrome" ...

The 10% most vocal of the 10% most "hardcore" gamers (probably) represents about 90% of the feedback that companies like Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony receive about their platform; and (probably) about 1% of the feedback these companies receive comes from the silent majority (80% of gamers). While these "hardcore" gamers may have some good ideas, they're also willing to make trade-offs that are unacceptable to the silent majority; for example, paying $300 more than they paid for the PS2 so that they can have a powerful system with a Blu-Ray player.

To make matters worse, Sony is a company that is dominated by its hardware engineers. These engineers are more interested in producing amazing technology that strong consumer products so the demands from the vocal 1% for impressive technology get listened to; and even if the marketing team has done the necessary research and claims it is a bad idea to release a $600 console the engineering team is empowered to ignore that because of the structure of Sony.