Yes, they are losing that badly. The truth is that the HD systems seem to be running out of steam (GTA IV = no hardware) while the Wii is accelerating and still not meeting demand. Hoping it will run out of steam first comes under the heading of wishful thinking. Nintendo would have to make some gigantic blunder. There is nothing in their decision making so far to give that any hope

Granted, we are talking about history but there are two things to remember:

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. George Santayana

False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news. Adrienne Rich

Meaning that Sony and Microsoft made some mistakes that hurt them; so they need to understand and not repeat them. And they had better not listen to the trade press and the so called experts like Pachter who has changed his predictions more time than the weatherman. Other are worse, I read another column repeating that the Wii is a joke, It’s sales will crash, the owners put it in the closet and never buy games. Almost everyone was saying that back in early 2007 but this was written last week. Obviously he wasn’t someone to let mere facts and figures influence him in the slightest.So I think it is important for actual gamers to discuss these issues. Hopefully someone will read them and learn.

I keep hearing second place been mentioned now for ps3.
is;nt that part of the problem for sony living in the past.
fact is it;s 6 mill behind the 360 and looking at sales for the first 5 months on this site it is averaging at best 50;000 more a week.

nothing I have seen makes me think it will come in second. after all every week and month it is out it loses the new appeal it had at the start of this year.
I mean this week it only outsold 360 by 35;000.

360 is holding its own just grand and ms wont do anything imo until they have to. sony are the ones who need to do something just look at the small lift both got coming off gta4. that cannot bode well for the future.

Well i dunno about that, i'm quite sure PS3 will outsell 360 eventually even if 360 outsells PS3 in America by a little bit. I do think however that it is pretty likely that PS3 will never pass 360 in America, and that is a big victory for them. Microsoft is making progress in Europe by surely passing xbox sales this year and having already beat xbox sales in japan. I think it's a big step in the right direction for them. The fact that 360 will likely have a bigger userbase for around 3 years over a Sony product is good for them. The ps2 had almost outsold xbox LTD by the time xbox launched.

The problem for Sony is their propensity towards callous exploitation. Which in turn decimates their obligation to good customer service. Stringer has mentioned his companies poor public perception in this regard. Sony in its rush for fast cash has trampled the very loyal customer that it needs to succeed. The problem succinctly is how they view consumers, and how they treat them.

Sony can work themselves out of their position of piss poor reputation. However the process will not be over night. Repairing their reputation and restoring their brand will take time, and will require some fundamental changes in their corporate culture. The first problem is the lying.

The corporate executives at Sony have shown themselves to be pathological liars. No remorse, no apology, and above all no restitution. When you tell lies people firstly will laugh at you, then they will not believe anything you say, and finally they will stop listening. When someone stops listening it is nigh impossible to sell something to them. Sony needs for its executives to be accountable for their conduct. A company doesn't have a god given right to lie to consumers, and create bogus claims. Sad though it may be Sony needs to fire a great many executives to get the point across that lying will not be tolerated.

Sony needs to prioritize their goals. The first goal should be customer retention. Not customer acquisition. Getting a new customer costs ten times as much as retaining the customer you have. To trade a new customer at the expense of the one you have is a bad business practice. I guarantee had Sony been taking care of the customers they had their console would be in the lead right now. Instead they focused on exploiting their customers rather then retaining them. The result they lost a lot of customers they will now have to win back at substantial cost.

Sony needs to resolve their conflicts of interest. Placing anti piracy features in your hardware for example reduces the hardwares functionality. Placing Trojan horses on your software devalues the hardware. Focusing on proprietary in house products should not come at the cost of using cheaper external hardware. Sony did not learn from Nintendo's own cart debacle.

Sony needs to make promises, and keep those promises. Over selling or a lack of follow through is the same thing as lying to the average consumer. You must deliver, and you must do so in a timely manner. Consumers will not tolerate this for long. The only thing empty promises gets you are jaded customers, or consumers that are soon to be buying someone else's products.

What Sony really needs are some strong corporate ethics. They need to follow the golden rule, and treat consumers in a respectable manner. Your never going to be the top dog if your mentality towards your customers is to lie to them, make exaggerated claims, take them for granted, and abuse them out of your own self interest. Your just going to alienate more people by behaving like this. That is how Sony has been behaving as a whole.

There's some truth in his words concerncing European consumers, though. Also, Americans get bashed often enough by Europeans, so I suggest you grow yourself a thicker skin

"Your never going to be the top dog if your mentality towards your customers is to lie to them, make exaggerated claims, take them for granted, and abuse them out of your own self interest."

I can´t imagine there´s a single company in the entire world that hasn´t done one of these things, or all of them...the secret is to try and hide these 'skeletons' well...that´s the way things are, unfortunately.

Hers what Aaron Greenberg of ms said of Sony’s online content .  Microsoft’s current rent-a-quote, Xbox director of product management Aaron Greenberg, has confirmed that there are now more than 17,000 pieces of content on the Xbox Live Marketplace in the US, and has claimed the figure means the service is as Wal-Mart is to a local Quickie Mart when compared to PlayStation Network.

“We’re at 17,000: the PlayStation Network is just around 600 items,” he said. “This is like comparing a Wal-Mart superstore or a Cost-Co to your local Quickie Mart, right? It’s at extreme ends… In the first year we had more than 600 items. We were way ahead of that.

”Here’s what he said about Sony over promising and under delivering.   

“I think Sony has had a history of over-promising and under-delivering. [I was] just using actual facts of all the things that they had promised. I think I talked to some folks about this afterwards, but I think as an industry, we owe it to our customers to be straight with them. I think that some of the stuff we’ve talked about, while the reaction may not always be positive, we’re going to tell you… People just want you to be straight with them. We know titles slip, we know things happen, and there’s little we can do to control that, but if we promise something - I think as an industry - we need to start living up to our promises. As an organization, I think Xbox has a pretty good track record of doing that.”

That’s the problem for ps3 everything is coming but when.

You can check it out on I tunes the link I was putting up was taken forever to load so I didn’t bother.

i have to agree with what psrock says. However, all systems have some problems. Sony has made a lot of mistakes. The generation is far from over. We have 2 more years until its over. The list of exclusive games they have for the ps3 in the next two years could help increase its console sales. Also if their is another price cut, that will help the system. 360 has the advantage because it came out a year ago and guess what it's not the #1 console, the wii is #1 console. That's quite sad for microsoft. Microsoft is going to face tough competition with sony from 2008-2009.