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"Sony about to lose?"

I spoke to a lecturer over in the media section of a neighbouring university recently and he told me something rather startling. He said to me that he believes the next gen console war could be the end for the Playstation brand. He said it could also mean problems for HD-DVD and then he went on to explain why…

But how on earth can Sony topple from its perch? I mean really? The mighty Playstation Company produce less software than the Nintendo and Microsoft but the high sales of their format is just unbelievable.

But is that about to change?

Sony's new era is supposed to be great, and it looks it. Sony's E3 show defeated Nintendo's hastily put together production and Microsoft's grand celebrity unveiling. The games looked better, Sony themselves were more sophisticated and they didn't need a hobbit to tell everyone they are the best. The PSP highlights their new venture into handheld gaming and it is moving at a swift pace.

It is impossible to say Sony are losing, the PSP may not have had the impact it should have had but it is still selling amazingly and the PS2 is the run away leader world-wide.

But the warning signs are here.


Nintendo's DS has upset Sony... upset Sony a lot. Sony, when first unveiling the PSP, did not expect to go head to head with a new Nintendo handheld right from the word go.

Sony hoped that the PSP would outshine the GBA SP so much it was bound to win due to its fantastic graphics, brand name and look, regardless of the price. And this was rather likely. But the DS has confused matters, it is a new competitor, cutting projected sales and its low price of £99 has meant Sony have had to cut the planned price for the PSP. This means the PSP will make a far greater loss at the beginning than Sony originally intended.

In Europe and America the PSP could well beat the DS. It has had a good start in America and pre-orders are high in Europe. But in Japan it is a different story.

In Japan Nintendo's DS has firmly beaten the PSP. PSP is doing okay; it is selling solidly and is unlikely to go anywhere. But the DS is beating it by 2 million consoles overall and outsells the PSP by about 20,000 consoles every week. Why? Well the Japanese market is in a slump and the DS not only tries to rejuvenate things with its new ideas but there are also a load of non-games, appealing to those Japanese folk that buy consoles for random reasons like "gentle brain exercises". The DS is even outselling the Playstation 2.

The Nintendo Revolution, although unknown for the moment, could well do something similar. It'll be cheaper than the PS3, much cheaper, and it'll have random Japanese games (like the gentle brain exercises) that will mean the Revolution could do "A DS"... as in dominate Japan. The Japanese market is volatile and easily changes, Nintendo could well take dominance back in the home ground.

But not in Europe and America. Nintendo could well rule the Japanese roost again but they are far from dominating the west. No, the new threat is Microsoft.

The X-box, in the sense of weekly sales, is beating the PS2 in America and Europe. It makes sense as the PS2 has been out 2 years longer. But the X-box franchise has made a MUCH larger name for itself over the last few years, taking supporters from the Sony encampment. Sony has to take this threat seriously. The PS3 is a VERY expensive console to produce, it needs to sell around £500 to make a profit and Sony are gonna go for around £400 and make a loss. Simply so they don’t upset the punters.

But Microsoft are set to have their system priced even lower AND they have a vital head start. Sony will have to re-consider pricing if they want to keep up. If they do cut the price then the PS3's first year losses will be massive. But if they don't they'll let Microsoft in.

Sony are facing a problem. They are at risk of losing their vital monopoly, vital because Sony make losses (at the start anyway) on each system they produce. Sony does not produce the software of Microsoft and Nintendo. Nintendo do not need to sell at the rate of the Playstation because Nintendo’s mass of software sells so well on its system (people buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games). The same, although to a lesser extent, applies to Microsoft (people buy the X-box for Live and Halo).

The Playstation brand is strong. Yet at the moment Nintendo are the number one games company in Japan and Microsoft are making a larger name for itself year in year out. As my lecturer friend put it “Nintendo are hot right now in the east and Microsoft are hot right now in the west… Sony are falling out of favour”.

Is this the beginning of the end? Or is the PS3 simply gonna destroy all?

Here’s to the future

Dringo.




The conspiracy theorist inside me can not help but mention that Microsoft are making it possible to send messages to DS through the 360 and have allowed their company, RARE WARE, to develop DS games. To say the two are working together to defeat Sony is a ridiculous story to spin, but it is interesting to see these rivals getting along so well.

Can't you play 8 player online?

Or system link 2 Xboxes?

And isn't PES only 7 player?

Maybe, maybe not.

But then, you can't play 8-player PES on the Xbox! :-)

I dunno, if there's money to be made then they'll probably be in there. They did invent the Multi-tap after all. The king of rip off peripherals.

I can't see Sony bothering, to be honest. They'll most likely leave it to companies like Game and Logitech.

My guess is that you'll have to buy some sort of adapter for it to work, so that Sony can squeeze some more money out of you. They all do it, I mean look at the 360 - £15 for a docking station for a wireless controller. WTF?!

PS3 has the capability of a HD, but whether or not one is included as standard has not been confirmed, as far as I know. I guess that means there could potentially be 2 pakcs available, as with the 360.

As for memory cards, I've yet to see a picture of what's under the flap where memory cards go. As far as I know, it takes Memory Stick, SD cards and Compact Flash cards. There's no mention of a 'memory card slot' in the normal sense, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

Even if their isn't, it most likely won't be long before third-party companies develop an adapter to allow you to plug your PS2 cards into the Memory Stick slot. A PS2 Memory Card is basically just an 8Mb Memory Stick in a different case anyway.

As for the old PS1 cards, I don't know - but no doubt someone will sort something out. Sony have said that it will be backwards-compatible with PS2 and PS1, so they've obviously considered these things.

I haven't really read up on the PS3 properly. Although leaving it to the 3rd-party companies instead of having a central hub for everything sounds like a really stupid idea.

If I remember right, the PS3 has a hard-drive built into it. I suppose it better have memory card slots as well, though, if it's to be backwards compatible as well.

Aren't Sony leaving online setups entirely down to developers/publishers?

Also will there or won't there be a hardrive in it as standard(wondering about custom soundtracks and mucking about with memory cards)?

It'll certainly be a lot tighter, and a lot more confusing when all the new consoles come out. At the moment, it's pretty obvious about what the best points of each console are, and you buy to match what you're after.

I think the biggest leveller is going to be the online aspect - at the moment, XB is the only choice if you want to go online, but MS could easily lose that big advantage if Sony sort themselves out and with Ninty joining the party.

And to be honest, if given a top-quality online service from all 3 companies, I'd be wanting to play Nintendo games through it much more than any other. And probably PS games after that ...

I'm guessing this was probably the biggest worry for MS as well, and their early launch could combat a lot of the problems by getting a large user-base and some quality online games running before any other consoles come out. And especially right before Christmas.

Ok gerrid - fair enough.

I'll make the tea, you bring the biscuits.