It wasn't the price that kept Sony from 1st place but because the didn't have things in order with the playstation launch. People was paying good money for the Nintendo Wii on Ebay for like the first two years. Then on top of that I think it was IGN or GameInformer that showed on the front cover thrown tomatoes on the Playstation for not having games. And before that at 2006 E3 when Sony showed the boomerang controller and got Fanboys from everywhere up tight. Then they tried to compete with Nintendo with motion controls and it working with the sixaxis and had no rumble. It look so much better as a console than it did then.

I bought one at launch and a 2nd one half a year later, to have a 2nd blu-ray player. I used it more for movies in the first year then for games. If it didn't have blu-ray I would probably not have bought one at launch, or a 2nd one. Hopefully the launch line up will be a lot better next gen, since there won't be a new movie format to entice me this time.

One thing they should never have done in retrospect is include otherOS. What good did it ever do? Was it a big selling point? They were selling at a loss, so people using it for otherOS (not games or movies) were just costing them money.

Plain and simple yes sony failed miserably with the ps3. The amount of consoles sold isnt the failure the 4.5 billion in loses is the severe failure. Ya ya ya they launched blueray with the ps3 but blue ray would have taken off regardless if it was in the ps3 or not. By the end of the gen best case sinerio they get that down to 2.5 billion. whether you like it or not its all about the money NOTHING else so yes the absolutly have failed.

Edit i misunderstood the topic

sony failed the ps3 with its high price early on but once the price came down id say its a fine machine.

The launch was a mess because of the price point. The hardcore thought it would do well no matter what price Sony slapped on it, but people hesitated. Add on that the 360 was already out with people raving about how great the online experience was which split a decent portion off into being xbox fans. Then the wii comes along and pulls out the massive casual support which is pretty much Sony's bread and butter. They both hit Sony when they were down and from completely different angles.

Sony might have still pulled it off if they maintained their third party support, but between PS3's insane development costs (which have bankrupted multiple studios with as much as 1 failed game), and third parties scrambling to make something for the Wii, Sony got screwed over horribly.

Sony did it to themselves, they got cocky, they didn't understand their own fanbase, they didn't think Microsoft or Nintendo had anything up their sleeves and they were dead wrong. How else do you explain them going from a massive first place lead to competing for second with microsoft.

They certainly stumbled out the gate, but they've done a good job since then to pick up the pieces and right the ship (enough phrases for you?)

I wouldn't call PS3 a failure in and of itself, but relative to its predecessor, the PS2, which sold an incredible 150 million, I'd have to say yes it was a failure, or at least a major decline.

This is the same old song and dance we've been talking about for 4 yrs. 

Fixed it for you.  Wii would have still had its blue ocean market no matter what.  But I think less people would have turned to the Xbox 360 had the launch price been the same as the 360 because more would have gone from the PS2 to PS3, naturally.  In America, I think the 360 and PS3 would have been equal because of the popularity of shooters (or the 360 still slightly ahead).  But in the rest of the world, the 360 would have had even less of a presence.

yeah and still people think brand name doesn't matter

thats why companies like APPLE sell so many products

wii would have had the innovation market but if you think that brand name doesn't matter when PLAYSTATION was the biggest thing in gaming by far back then

Wii would have picked yp by nowhere near the way it did

its like Android,Nokia keep taking out better things but APPLE still beats them

100's of billions of dollars,are you real?

sony would have lost alot but software number would have been off the hook

don't forget,PS2 sold 1.6billion copies of software

if sony got anywhere near that then they would have totally earned everything back

every PS3 game today pays $10 to sony in royalty

sony earns $35 on first party games

plus the success would have turned blu-ray into a monster and royalties would have made sony very happy

the reason why this couldn't possible was

sony's overconfidence on its brand name.it was $399 strong,just not $499 strong

few launch games

plus early shortages which didn't build a base and then devs backed off