Time magazine has released their 5 Things That Went From Buzz to Bust list, and among the things that went down the proverbial toilet was Sony’s PS3.
According to the piece, Sony frittered away the home game console lead they enjoyed with the last-gen PS2 and threw away victory in the next console war by making the PS3 outrageously expensive launching with a weak lineup of games. The Time article said:
"The big story in computer games this year was HOW TO BLOW A HUGE LEAD, by Sony. Its PlayStation 2 was the champ in the last round of the console wars. This time Sony bet on a chip called the Cell and a disc format called Blu-ray. They’re probably awesome, but how would anybody know? The PS3 is hideously expensive–it goes for up to $600–and Sony manufactured only a piddling few hundred thousand for the U.S., fewer for Japan. Plus it’s hard to write games for; the launch titles were lame. You know you’re in trouble when you get beat by something called a Wii."
Although the sentiments issued by Time are certainly valid, others believe that the rocky start the PS3 has experienced will eventually be turned around.
At the moment, the PS3, by nature of its scarcity in the marketplace, is commanding highly inflated prices at online auction sites and even at established retail stores. Montgomery Ward is offering PS3s for the price of $1249 and $1299 for the 20GB and 60GB models, respectively, with no bundled software included. While rare items always seem to capture the public’s interest, it is still uncertain at this time whether the PS3 can truly be considered a success, even amidst the high demand for the next-gen game console.
Some are speculating that the early clamor for PS3s is primarily driven by the difficulty in getting one–Sony has encountered tremendous shortcomings in terms of production numbers. Compounding that problem are scalpers, who have snapped up much of the available supply, making the system even more difficult to find. But should this premise prove to be correct, it might just mean that the popularity of the machine is artificial. If this is truly the case, Sony may be in dire straights beginning next year, when there may not be enough real interest in the machine once they are readily available.
