PlayStation 3rd??? News
Jon Wilcox
18/07/2006
The storm clouds continue to gather around PlayStation3 as one market researcher predicts a "golden opportunity" for Microsoft and Nintendo...
The PlayStation3 could end up being in third place at the end of the next-gen console war, according to the latest findings at market analysts, DFC Intelligence. Citing a return in strategy to Sony's 'elitist' philosophies of old, deviating from the mass-market approach with both PlayStation and PlayStation2, DFC has stated that the electronics giant has "...handed its competitors [Microsoft and Nintendo] a golden opportunity".
The market researchers are so adamant that Sony's strategy of high-prices and insistence that the PlayStation3 is a computer and not a console (Sony's Kutaragi-san has stated that this will allow the system to grow with upgraded hardware over time), that DFC lay down the following warning:
"[If] Sony does not change its current strategy for the PS3 the system will probably end up in third place in installed base."
Even in the best case scenario for the next-gen system in Japan by 2011, cumulative sales of the PS3 may reach between 20 and 25 million units, languishing far behind its predecessor's predicted 45 million cumulative sales in the territory. In Japan, PS3 may drop to second place behind Wii, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 failing to clamber out of third position.
From a global perspective however, DFC makes the prediction that in the best-case scenario for Microsoft, Xbox 360 will be the worldwide market share leader, with the Wii in second place.
Of course this remains speculative and it'll be a long wait to see whether DFC's predictions turn out to be accurate; but if they are...
We'll have more news shortly...