Hardware First, Software First, Services First: How The Big 3 Sell Their Brands, As I See It

[Dante9]

Sony with software last? Yeaaaah, no.
Software has been the very key for Sony in beating Microsoft, especially this generation. And that didn't just come out of nowhere, it has been a long and arduous project that is now starting to bear fruit. In fact, software was very largely a factor in breaking Sony into the console business to begin with. They went with CD and snagged a few killer titles that would have gone to Nintendo traditionally, and that's how the ball started rolling. Sony has been pushing great gaming libraries every gen and that is how they have built their brand. You know you will get the games, whether they are popular multiplats or great exclusives, they will come and they will be good.
You are right in that Sony has always been a hardware company, that's what they originally were and still make all kinds of hw in different markets. But they went through a major crisis on that front, which made them see the value of their gaming brand and shift their focus accordingly. They saw what they have to do on the software side and they nailed it.
I don't really see why an arbitrary 10 million sales figure would be some kind of a measure for how important software is to a company. A game only needs to sell enough to be decently profitable, and when you churn out enough games that are well received, you will begin to see customer trust and brand value. When you have all of the multiplats on the roster, your own games don't need to carry the whole load.
Like Holly said, Sony is pretty well balanced as a whole. I'd say they are pretty much equally hw/sw, with services dragging behind a little.