Sony should quit when they are (not) ahead

The year of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) has been moved to 2009, says analyst Piers Harding-Rolls from Screen Digest, so plan your calendars accordingly. Wait. This is the same company that predicted that the Wii would end up in third place in the current console wars.

An analyst from Silicon Alley had this to say about the PS3: "It is the most expensive console on the market no one seems to care about hi-def DVDs [and] The PS3 just doesn't have any must-have exclusive to the console." All this speculation leads the analyst to tell PS3 owners to "[t]ell yourself the PS3 has superior graphics if it makes you feel better, but a $400 console with a mediocre game library simply cannot compete against an Xbox 360 priced at $200 in this economy."

As if this wasn't enough for the PS3, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article shortly afterward titled, "Hope fades for PS3 as a Comeback Player." The PS3 was being depended upon by Sony to make a return as other departments were hit by the recent economic downturn. Though the PS3 was slowly gaining momentum throughout the year, the holiday sales were a blight to this optimism. This led the WSJ to assert that "If Sony doesn't close the gap with its rivals, it could risk making the PS3 an afterthought to game publishers, who focus most of their resources on the machines with the most users." The article then goes on to enumerate the same reasons used by Silicon Alley. This leads the WSJ to conclude that Sony might not reach their goal of selling 10 million consoles by March.

Yahoo jumped in as well, though they directed Sony's quandaries to the PlayStation Portable (PSP), which did not have a good year in 2008. Many of the points were valid, saying that there were only a handful of significant titles released for the handheld, and that the Nintendo DS has more titles over 80% on rating-aggregate sites. Yahoo points out that people have stopped producing games for the PSP since no one is buying them, which will worsen the PSP's offerings for 2009. The idea that the iPhone and iPod Touch are faring as more successful portable gaming devices comes as a surprise-though it shouldn't, since Apple has such a large amount and hold of the mainstream market.

Sony recently had a conference devoted to restructuring the company's plans for the future. They plan to devote more resources to first-party software production, which may change the fate of the PS3, though it might be too little, too late. Sony CEO Howard Stringer faces major lay-offs and a massive overhaul of the company since revealing its first annual operating loss in 14 years. Production will also be scaled back in Sony's other areas.

Is the PS3 truly a sinking ship? It has undoubtedly dropped the ball since it was initially announced. Sony came off as snobby when they said people should pay $600 for a true next-generation experience. It didn't help that the Xbox 360, the PS3's true competitor, had a year lead in sales by the time is launched. The recession isn't helping price-sensitive consumers either. Sony has since tried to make amends since their bumpy unveiling, but many believe that the console isn't competitively priced. Anticipated and heavily-promoted titles like "LittleBigPlanet" and "Resistance 2" didn't sell as well as Sony hoped.

Here's a lesson to Sony: Next time around, don't take your fan base for granted. Nintendo, keep this in mind next console generation.