I'm just back from vaca, and I see Sony isn't doing too well. First, the company went from almost $2 billion in profits a year ago to $600 million in profits for the fiscal year that just ended. Guess which part of the company is responsible for that big drop. And there's no reason to think that pattern will change soon: In April, only 82,000 PlayStation 3s sold in the U.S. Even in Japan, where the Xbox 360 is a total failure, Sony sold fewer than 9,000 PS3s in a recent week.
Meanwhile, there are no PS3 games on the horizon that look like big system sellers. Sony is touting Lair and Heavenly Sword, but they don't seem to be wowing anyone. LittleBigPlanet is the only bright spot I see. Meanwhile, the Wii has new Metroid, Super Mario and Super Smash Bros. games coming, and the Xbox 360 has Halo 3.
Sony basically has to cut the price for the PS3, but that will only make things worse; they're already losing money on each system sold, so a lower price will put them that much further in the red. And the biggest long-term worry for Sony has to be that the low PS3 sales mean Blu-ray DVD isn't taking off and killing HD-DVD right away like the company might have hoped. That Blu-ray bet still looks shaky.
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