What We Know

Before we get into what will come from Sony in the future, it is important to consider the past of the console giant. Widely considered to be the console that changed the face of consoles, the Playstation One debuted with mixed results that led to overwhelming success. As years went on, successful software and hardware sales brought gamers over to the world of Sony from Sega and Nintendo. As the PSOne paved the way for greater things, the Playstation 2 was the realization of Sony's dominant position in the console market. The PS2 offered the technological advances not reached by the Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast. Despite some early mixed results (see an interesting article regarding the release of the PS2 here).

Now we need to look at where the Playstation 3 is right now. While many websites and sources disagree about the exact number of consoles sold, the number of consoles shipped to retailers is 3.25-3.5 million consoles. That compares to some 7 million Nintendo Wii consoles and about 10 million Xbox 360s. About 40 percent of PS3 consoles have been sold in the United States, 30 percent in Japan and another 30 percent in other international markets. So while Sony is struggling to gain ground against Nintendo and more importantly Microsoft, there are a few important items that will maintain short term survival, and key future success.