starcraft said:
To my knowledge, Sony entered the gaming market to dominate the gaming market. It wasn't until they developed Blu-Ray that they decided to trojan horse it into the PS3, and even then they were behind Microsoft's 8-ball on downloads. I can't see Blu-Ray getting anywhere near DVD's market share, let alone it's lifetime sales. Downloads are going to come in steadily over the next ten years and DVD is putting up a hell of a fight. And as I said in my response to Bmaker, Sony's gaming dominance is long gone.
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When Sony first entered the game market, it immediately proclaimed that its biggest opponent was neither Nintendo nor Sega, but Microsoft, because Windows was trying to be your all-in-one center for all your media needs. If you're interested, I can try to scrape up the quotes, although it'd take a while, since this was over a decade ago.
As to your second point, I quite agree. I also doubt that Blu-Ray will enjoy the success that DVDs did, and that digital distribution will likely be DVDs successor. And if that happens, then Sony's just shot itself in the foot. The thing is, like I said earlier, I don't pretend to be able to predict long-term trends: I don't have the time to pore through the data, and even if I did I lack to expertise to properly interpret it. So if I'm wrong, and Blu-Ray does win, then Sony will inevitably do pretty well for itself, even if its not the only person who profits from the medium. Remember though that Blu-Ray is only supposed to be one segment of Sony's long-term plan: it's a mean, not an end.
And yes, Sony is not going to recover its gaming dominance this generation. I wouldn't write them off for next time, though. As Nintendo just showed, its quite possible to go from last to first in no time. but does Sony still have the necessary drive and vision? We have three or four years before we find out.
