PS3

Sony Playstation 3

Sony's next-gen console has taken it on the chin this year. The PS3 has had few games reach the top 10 in terms of sales this year and the so called $100 "price drop" for the 60GB hard drive version was simply a stop-gap measure as Sony rather sheepishly admitted during E3 they were going to phase out that version for the new $599 80GB version. Some financial analysts have already predicted that the 80GB version will also go down to just $499 later this fall once the supply of the 60GB PS2 console runs out but so far Sony has not admitted it will make such a move.

It's the expensive price of the PS3 that has kept the console from flying off store shelves since the initial rush to buy the PS3 during the fall 2006 launch time period. Even the cut in the 60GB price wasn't enough to get the PS3 to outsell the Xbox 360 for the month of July. Even if Sony does lower the 80GB PS3's price to $499 it will still be the most expensive of the three next-gen consoles.

However, Sony is counting on a number of exclusive and semi-exclusive third party games to help its cause this holiday season. The flood of first party game began in late August with the release of the critically acclaimed Warhawk (in both retail stores and via download) but another game that was just released, Lair, has gotten some of the worst reviews ever for a major first party console game in recent memory. Sony needs for its other first party games like Heavenly Sword, Folklore, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune to gain a wide audience. The PS3 has only a few third party exclusive titles but one of them is a biggie; Unreal Tournament 3. This semi-exclusive will launch on the PS3 along with the PC this November and Epic's first person shooter will even allow PS3 players to play UT3 mods created by their PC cousins (the Xbox 360 isn't due out for several months after the PC-PS3 and there's no plans to allow PC mods to be played on that console).

So can Sony come from behind and win this console war? Sure. Here's how we think Sony can come back from third (at least in the US):

Lower the price of the PS3 even more
It's been proven that lowering the price of the console down to even $499 wasn't enough to get people to buy the console over the Xbox 360 and Microsoft's recent price cuts across the board will make Sony's job that much more difficult. They may take a big loss at first but unless Sony does something drastic about the price they will have lost all hope of gaining market share over Microsoft and Nintendo in this console war and if that happens look for a lot of third party developers to abandon PS3 development and switch to the Xbox 360 and Wii only. We think the time is right for Sony to price the PS3 to $399 this fall for the 80GB version. If they don't it won't matter how good their PS3 exclusives turn out to be (LittleBigPlanet, due out in early 2008).

Upgrade their online service
Sony has gotten a lot of attention for their upcoming (and free) Playstation Home service which is supposed to give users a full 3D virtual enviroment to chat with others via avatars, collect virtual items in their virtual pad and do all sorts of other virtual stuff. However it's our opinion that Sony needs to walk in the online space before it can run and in this respect the current state of the PS3 online network still pales in comparison to the Xbox 360's Xbox Live. Microsoft releases demos on an almost daily basis for the console along with lots of other content. However Sony only manages to release a few demos, small games and trailers every Thursday. Sony needs to try to match the current online offerings of Microcoft's console. Otherwise, Playstation Home users might be a lonely bunch.

Stop talking about how Blu-Ray is better for games than DVD
Yes, Blu-Ray can hold lots more data than a DVD disk and it's likely that a few future Xbox 360 games may have to fit on more than one DVD disk. But the crappy reviews for Lair should prove that having a Blu-Ray disk to store data won't make the game better. Sony, concentrate on releasing games that are fun to play on the PS3 and quit telling us about how many sound files can fit on one Blu-Ray disk. Thank you.

Make sure first party games are good
Right now the record is 1-1 on fall first party games for the PS3; Warhawk is fun but Lair is not. Sony needs to get players to ignore the Xbox 360 and Wii by making their fall 2007 games memorable and worth the price of the PS3.

Outlook-Average
Sony has a lot to deal with in order to get out of the many issues it currently has with the PS3. It's not insurmountable but the truth is that they need to get on the horse and try to deal with them instead of making excuses.