Looking ahead from E3 2008 Posted by Matt Lees, 175 days ago
Sony kicked off their keynote with what felt like a handful of excuses, bringing up the aforementioned 10 year plan on more than one occasion. Once into full swing, most of their presentation focused on additions to their PSN service and price cuts across the board with new PS3 and PSP bundles coming soon. Wowing the crowd with CGI for God of War 3 and MAG (the ingeniously titled ‘Massive Action Game’), Sony were happy to announce they’d had a jolly good financial year, doing particularly well with their shiny high definition televisions. Most notable perhaps is the introduction of their ‘greatest hits’ range, with games like Oblivion, Motorstorm, and Resistance soon to retail at $29.99. It’s not huge news by itself, but over time should help bridge the price gap between 360 and PS3 games across the board.
Sony still have a very tough road ahead of them in the coming year, quite simply. Many analysts including myself foresaw the release of GTA IV causing a massive PS3 sales spike, which mysteriously failed to emerge. Despite this the Sony Playstation brand is still hugely powerful - it’s these two words alone that have been stunting 360 sales for the past two years – but as it stands for whatever reason the system simply isn’t selling as it should be. Unlike with the 360, most people don’t need to be convinced that they need to get a PS3, they already want one simply through familiarity. As of now these people are most likely waiting for a few more must-have games and a substantial price-drop before they make the jump to next gen. The heat’s really on Sony this year to ‘seal the deal’ on these millions of potential sales, as otherwise there’s a good chance their fans could end up being poached by the other side. At the same time however, as long as these financial recessions aren’t to be as bleak as predicted it’s only a matter of time before Blu-ray starts to replace the DVD standard, at which point Sony will happily start shifting boxes in exactly the same way they did with the PS2. The PS3 is destined to be hugely successful at some point down the line, the question at this point remains whether or not they’re actually going to make any money out of it.
