There’s too much doom-, gloom- and hate- mongering over Sony at the moment.

I don’t have any axe to grind or flag to wave for Sony, but as a long-time Wii owner I know what that feels like – so let’s redress the balance a bit. Sony did a lot of things right, both for itself and for the gamers. And it isn’t doomed.

First, the early hype and arrogance around launch. For all that it looks hubristic in hindsight, Sony had to do it to win the format war – and that has always been a big driver for them in the console stakes. They had to win the press and the war of words early on and they did it, did it well, and won their battle. So that’s not a mistake.

Second, console design and engineering. Top notch. It is a marvellous machine.

Third, games. They’ve done OK- a bit light in the early days maybe, but coming on nicely. Sony, like Nintendo and unlike Microsoft, understands the broader gaming market and can expand their portfolio – LBP, Flower, Aquanaut’s Holiday show the way. They just need to not be in denial about it like they seemed to be in the early days.

Fourth, sales. Much better than they appear to be. PS3 is tracking almost identically to X360 from launch. In fact, now that Xbox 360 is essentially two different consoles (high-end v. PS3 and Arcade v. Wii), PS3 is consistently doing better than the high-end X360s. In fact MS is losing on both battlefronts.

So where does it seem to have gone wrong? Just two things I think:

Marketing is the first one. And I’m talking marketing here not price, because until MS dropped the price and refocused on the Arcade price was really not the issue between the HD consoles. Trouble is, Sony let MS set the agenda on price comparisons despite the extras needed to match the PS3 specs. Bad error. Either they believed their own hype or they believed that potential customers could work out the price comparisons for themselves. They need a better spin machine.

And the second is dropping backwards compatibility. The way I see it Sony has two big advantages, the technology and the existing install base. Taking out BC was like chopping one leg off and still hoping to win the race.

Both of these can be fixed. Not really quickly, but there’s time. Sony can weather this holiday, but perhaps not so easily the next one.

Good luck to them.

true but you should have put price as the main thing they did wrong

That's deliberate jacezo, because I don't think price is the problem - and Sony knows that. Price perception is the problem. Add up all the costs of X360and you're not far off the PS3 price.

It's marketing - they just aren't slick enough.

The price of the PS3, more importantly the cost was/is the problem. They let Ken K. run wild with the technical specs of the machine. If you look at some of the early design material, you can see that he was not designing a competitive system (multiple HDMI outputs, 2 gigs of memory). MS really outsmarted Sony with the feature list. Sony can't compete with MS's a la carte accessory model.

I see someone's been huffing Sony PR reports.

Xbox 360 Pro Bundle for $300 comes with 2 games.

PS3 base model $400 + 2 used crap games (2X$20) = $440.

Looks like I'm saving $140 unless of course you think the general populus will ever  factor in the cost of xbox live premium which they aren't required to pay for or the value of a BluRay player which most of them don't want. Sony's been trying to sell those lines since launch and people still aren't falling for it.

They were doing so good at 399, and 499 until the 360 dropped to 199.

Honestly sony did NOTHING wrong, MICROSOFT just decided to cut down to ubber cheap levels.

I keep hearing that the new PS3s are not backward compatible -- Is the 360 backward compatible?

Btw... I will get me another 1 if the price is around 250... [Black Friday amazon had the 80 gb ps3 for 199 (email invites only)]

The new ps3's play all ps1 games not ps2, and the 360 plays some xbox games, not all.

I don't see why the PS3's aren't backwards compatible. Does it save money? Or does Sony just want to force people to buy PS3 games?

Region-free gaming. That's one of the few things I envy about the PS3 (another one is Ninja Gaiden Sigma although it's a remake of a game I played).

As a programmer, I would also like to do some experiments with the Cell, I may get one when it's cheaper for that purpose.