As Sales rightly said, Sony are in the worst position out of the three - no doubt.

What I think varies. There's so many points to consider.

On the one hand, this generation (in home consoles) is definitely Sony at their worst. High initial price point with few games; incredibly difficult hardware to create games on; a not-quite-as-good-as-the-competition online service, so on and so forth.

As the generation went on, however, Sony seemed (at least to me) to completely change. With the launch of the slim in 2009 the PS3 just gained so much momentum which arguably it still hasn't lost yet; the online service was greatly improved; the games have been great, there's so much to love about my PS3, and I think the sales have reflected that.

So, by that logic, if Sony carried this momentum through to the PS4 with one other change (make it easy to code for - which if Vita is anything to go by is a virtual certainty) then they could definitely hold on to - if not improve their market share.

I'd say another positive is that they're popular in all 3 markets.  They have a bigger dominance in Europe which I can realistically see them holding - the US is going to be hard against Microsoft but there's no reason why they can't sell a bucketload of all consoles in all 3 main regions.  The Playstation name is still a relatively big name.

There's some stuff they're gonna have to improve though. Marketing being the main culprit.

On the other hand, the competition is now far greater than it ever was during their eras of dominance. Wii-U may or may not be the next big thing in gaming and Microsoft could conceivably back Sony into a corner by going with a powerful console and selling it at a massive loss.

There's also the main problem, which is throughout the PS1 & 2 era Sony relied heavily on third parties to shift their consoles, and we're moving increasingly back towards all of the big 3 getting all the games (which admittedly happened a lot during the PS2 era, but many of the 'huge' games were secured on timed exclusivity for Sony). I think Sony are offputting this by working hard on a great network of second-party studios, exclusivity deals etc. I think the relationships with many of the big publishers are still there, but as we've seen from Vita - they can't always be relied on.

But that brings me to Vita, which is a different case altogether really. Definitely the last dedicated handheld I see Sony releasing. Whether or not they incorporate it into PS4 remains to be seen, but I certainly don't think it's a bad idea.

No, kid. If you had a choice, you needed to pick Microsoft. Always aim for the greater evil.

Because they don't really care about gaming and they managed to make many people believe that paying more for the same thing is awesome. Microsoft encouraged paid DLC, so much that they forbid companies who wanted to offer their content for free to publish it on the Xbox Live market place. The result of Microsoft's practices is that content is stripped out of games to sell it for an additional cost to the consumer. What used to be unlockables, now comes at an extra cost. Games can also be shipped without proper quality assurance and be patched later on.

With every passing year, gaming takes more and more a backseat at their E3 conference and the Xbox brand will probably transform into a Microsoft branded PC that is meant to be put in people's living rooms. It's going to be a PC without the benefits of PC gaming, because Microsoft will control the system.

Hard to say given that the Game division posted a loss last quarter.   If PS3 is sold at a profit now, where did that loss come from?

"Now, of course, the Vita is selling like garbage, but that can be attributed almost absolutely to software support, or lack thereof and the total opposite situation for it’s closest competitor, the 3DS, which has a great catalogue of titles."

As an owner of a launch 3DS, its catalogue in the West is dreadful. No idea where this belief that it has a good library stems from. NSMB2 came out mid august and since then the only games worth noting have been Art Academy and Code of Princess which came out just this month. The Vita's first year library is much stronger than the 3DS' first year library and I'm sure all fellow 3DS and Vita launch owners that had to wait until November for MK7 and SM3DL would agree. Such a drought of games on a platform outperforming the original DS is unacceptable.

The Vita's abysmal sales are attributable to the fact that it's too expensive in a market where all 3 major home consoles are more affordable and naturally have larger libraries, its competitor has stronger brand power at the moment and a cheaper handheld platform, and of course the eroded Sony brand. The proprietary memory doesn't help either. It could be the most amazing piece of tech in the world, but the average person will ask "why on earth does it cost as much as a home console that's capable of playing blu-rays and 3D games".

Also to clarify before an army of irrational fans throw their angry posts at me, the 3DS library in Japan is phenomenal, but that's just one market whereas the 3DS is greatly outselling the Vita in markets where its library isn't all that strong.

As for the Playstation brand in general, I think it's just a matter of the PS3's poor start which began the erosion of the Playstation brand that didn't stop until 2009, and in turn severed its strong relations with third parties. I can guarantee you if the PS3 replicated the PS2s success and the 360 and Wii flunked, you wouldn't have seen FF, Tekken and DQ go to other console platforms. It's created a new culture at Sony where they rely heavily on first party titles, which I think is a positive. While the brand is far from doomed as PS3 sales are solid, they'll just have to buckle up like Nintendo did with the N64 and GC. We're seeing a generation of gaming where all 3 competitors are equally favourable in the consumer's eye, and it has nothing to do with the PS brand dying. If anything the brand was in a worse state after the first year of this generation.

Apologies for the poor editing, I have no time.

lol your so adorable.

1st: Sony financials/PS3 losses in its first few years/PS2 sales compared to PS3........its only facts. You feel bad for people paying attention to the real world. Hows that viel look over your eyes?

2nd: Did I just read a PS fan justify having no big guns this year? Downplaying your consoles biggest strengths? wow. Nevermind the big 3rd party games like COD and AC3 will be bought more on 360.

1. It took SEGA a combination of like 4 consecutive "failed" products before they left the hardware business.

2. I don't think the PS3 is anywhere close to being a failure. If current sales are any indication, I think it could last well into the next generation of consoles.