Do these sales numbers surprise you? [Sony Still Dominant?!?]

[Radish Knight]

That was the question:
Is Sony's strategy of brand loyalty and a long-lifespan of consoles somehow something that should be ignored? We know that the Wii is a phenomenal seller and it is getting its due credit. But isn't it legitimate to look at the fact that Sony is targeting buyers by having two viable consoles available? And by doing this they're actually selling the most total consoles.

They are selling the most consoles but that's not important, at least not to anyone but Sony. What's important is the future. The fact that Sony removed the emotion engine from the PS3 proves that Sony wants more money now to try to make up the loss caused by the PS3 by forcing people who want to play PS2 games to buy a PS2. I think that it saved them a lot of money to do so but it put them behind in the long run against X360 and Wii who are both backward compatible. People that do not own a PS2 and buy one now might have bought a PS3 if it was backward compatible. So in a way, you could say that the sales of PS2 is actually hurting the sale of PS3. In that case, I don't think we could say it's a good long-term strategy but they are selling more consoles now.

Also, I think a lot of people who bought a PS2 last generation are likely to get a X360 or Wii for the sole reason that would buy both a Xbox and a 360 or a GC and a Wii, especially if both are dominating the PS3.