even if the PS3 comes in 2nd place, Sony would still have won because their blu-ray format is the standard for HD, and it will slowly replace DVD, and this is what Sony wanted.
Their is allot of money to be made from royalties, so they'll easily regain all their money back plus profit.

I don't think they can win, they will have less market share than last gen not to mention they will be outsold so they won't win by number of units. I also think they've lost to much money on the PS3 already to win by profit.

This myth was already addressed in this thread, but the BDA is a consortium of over a dozen different companies. Sony does not get these profits alone.

You're right its split between a bunch of companies... but when you talk about a 50billion dollar industry (home movies) and last year 2% of that was HD movies and we all know how fast blu-ray caught on after the hddvd format died....

I'll just spell it out for you about 1 billion dollars (300mil went to Warner) were blu-ray + HD-DVD (With blu-ray having the majority) last year. This year blu-ray will have 99% of whatever money is spent on the HD movies. On top of that the format is flourishing with the rapid growth rate (people gobbled blu-ray up after the warner announcement).

I can see blu-ray movies raking in about 3billion this year. Divide that amongst companies and you still have a hefty amount.

Now add HD-Tvs Blu-ray players that will be sold.... just do the math.

Well when Blu-Ray manages to even tap 25% of that 50 Billion dollar industry, then you can start counting their blessings, but as things stand Sony is splitting the profits of 11% of the market if even that with those dozen other companies.

Also to try and rationalize the PS3's blow to the Gaming Division with, "Blu-Ray won the HD format war" is basically to say that gaming doesn't matter but Blu-Ray does.

Sure, Sony as a whole may benefit from Blu-Ray, but their gaming division is shot and I think that's the more pertinent issue here, as well, you know, this is a gaming site.

While it's reassuring to think of Sony as a whole when trying to console the thought of thier struggling gaming division, the health of their gaming division is really something primarily in and of itself.

 Exactly... It's quite a dilema having BR. They mismanaged hardware(lense shortage) and the games division during launch period. Which in return kicks em off the top spot of the wishlist and kills the appeal they had.

 What was sad is that i read some article about Rockstar willing to keep GTA4 exclusive to PS3(forgot the site of the article). What did them wrong was that they were'nt able to make a deal with Sony during those times. Losing interest and with the timely approach by MS, they signed the deal with them giving some exclusivety on 360.

btw.. I lol'd at the quote in you're sig. So very true, FFXII didn't even show up in my radar. At least they made the right thing with Crisis Core. 

I honestly don't think the PS3 is pumping out enough good games to keep it in a winning position. What have they been doing, like 2 great games a year, and several more disappointments?

Also, people (the MASS market) don't care about blu-ray because hardly anybody has a 1080p TV, and most cable companies offer high-def channels anyway, and a 480p DVD still looks good on a HDTV.

The condition sine qua non for PS3 to really win is to adopt a long term strategy. PS3 started slow, so it needs a lifecycle at least long as PS2's one. If PS4 will have a newer version of Cell there will be the continuity with PS3 that lacked between PS2 and PS3 due to incomplete bc, so this will help PS4's start. And making PS3 live even 7 years will give Sony, with future price cuts, a good selling entry level machine to flank the next gen console, like PS2 is still doing now.
Obviously, like others pinpointed, BD's victory is already a big win for Sony.
OTOH, mighty Wii won't have a life as long as PS3 can have, as Nintendo will need an HD console when HD TVs will be commonplace: this won't be absolutely a problem, a quad or eight core PPC will cost in 4 or 5 years less than Xenon and Cell costed to MS and Sony this gen, and will provide to Wii2 huge power advantage on the previous one, along with the precious full bc, the only drawback for Nintendo is that unless they increase production, they'll struggle to exceed 100 million shipped over 5 years and this will give Sony the chance to reduce the gap and, once stopped Wii's production, possibly fill it by making PS3 live at least one year more than Wii.

Haven't read the whole thread; just responding to the OP here.

I think that PS2 domination was a massive coup for Sony.  However, if the PS3 fails to match the install base of PS2, it's not a loss as long as they are making money.  PS3 started out more expensive, but it also trojan-horsed Blu-Ray to victory, so all Blu-Ray income can be in large part attributed to PS3.

To say that PS3 fails if it doesn't achieve what PS2 did, is anti-Sony propaganda (if anyone is still saying such things in these more enlightened times). 

BLU-RAY

Coming in a strong second place in the console war should be worth it seeing as they just won a format war for a market worth $40-50 billion.

Edit: And yes, the BDA consists of dozens of companies, but Sony and Panasonic are the principal patent holders of Blu-Ray technology, and they recieve the lions share of royalties on licensing Blu-Ray tech.

Look at it this way, Sony is recieving royalties on EVERY Blu-Ray disc sold, which means they recieve royalties on all Blu-Ray movies, and they recieve royalties TWICE on all PlayStation 3 games (once for them being PS3 games, and once for them using Blu-Ray discs). They also recieve royalties on every Blu-Ray player sold, something that is often overlooked (the $40-50 billion figure comes from movie sales alone, if I recall correctly).