Sony looks like they are crashing and burning REALLY REALLY fast XD. When even SONY thumbs up Nintendo, the apocolypse is coming. At least when Peter Moore thumbs up Nintendo, they have the "You can buy us and Wii for the price of ONE Sony!" Going for them.
Since Wii isn't their competitor (at least not directly), Microsoft and Sony are the only ones contending with the "My system is prettier!" contest; as Nintendo sits back and goes "Mmmm...money..." So, to beat out the competition, they use the Wii as a way of leverage to gain a necessary boost over the other.
I never thought either company could sink so low to make their moves obvious, it's just so very sad.
I actually feel bad for Sony. Despite hardware that didn't live up to the competitors they were still king of the last generation. And then everything started go go wrong:
* Crash Bandicoot (their unofficial mascot) showed up on non-Sony systems.
* Grand Theft Auto (3-D era) went from a Sony exclusive to something with extra content and better graphics on the Xbox (making it the prefered GTA system). And now the GTA series is apparently being launced as a Microsoft and Sony exclusive title.
* Square-Enix made up with Nintendo, and instead of porting it's classic games to the PSP, they came to the GBA and DS. Heck, Nintendo is getting Final Fantasy III as an exclusive, a game that's never come to North America.
* Solid Snake will be appearing in Super Smash Bros Brawl, which means Sony is losing its grasp on the MGS series. And if what the trailers suggest is true, the next MGS will be the last one anyway. Which will mean Sony losing one of its biggest sellers. Apparently Hideo Kojima also
begged Sakurai to put Snake into Super Smash Bros.
Melee. Obviously he refused, but apparently the begging continued when it came time for Brawl.
* Nintendo gained the core Resident Evil series exclusively (although when exclusive licenses run out, the games can be ported to other systems).
* The PS3 will most likely be the last next-gen system to be released, meaning it will be behind its competitors. And if Microsoft was serious, they'll be releasing Halo 3 on the same day. Popular theory suggests the only reason the PS2 was king last-gen was due to coming out first, and backwards compatibility.
* The PSP was over-priced at launch, making it something the average person couldn't (or didn't want to) afford at release. I mean really, it was more than a console for goodness sake. Which may be one of the many reasons alot of people turned to the DS.
* The PS3's price is too expensive for the average person, meaning that the first couple of years of sales will be terrible outside of the hardcore gaming circles.
* Final Fantasy XI, one of the PS2's most popular MMORPGs is coming to Xbox 360. And is already out for PC. Both versions are considered superior to the PS2 version. It also doesn't look like there's a PS3 remake in sight.
* Their last online services were a joke, they seem to be looking to improve them with the PS3. But people are already more prepared to accept Xbox live when it comes to online (non-PC) gaming.
* The PS3 budget version will not include backwards compatibility. Which means people who wanted to buy that version will most likely not buy either version (due to lack of features on the budget version, and the price of of normal version). Backwards compatibility was one of the major draws for both PS2, and PS3.
* There's a chance Sony will lose the next-gen DVD format war, in which case their PS3 blu-ray functionality becomes useless outside of games (all companies involved should have made that compromise, this will only end badly). There's a good chance blu-ray will fail, due to HD DVD getting the point of what it is across perfectly. It's a high definition digital video disc. So it's more familiar to the average consumer. And then there's how HDDVD is already out, whereas we won't see blu-ray for months. The average consumer doesn't care how much a movie dsc holds, they just want high quality media with a familiar name and a good price point.
* Sony doesn't have a virtual console service (that I'm aware of) like Nintendo, or to a lesser extent... Microsoft. I for one thing this is going to be a huge market in the coming years.
I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of at the moment. They're losing ground fast. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the two (Sony or Microsoft) died by the end of this generation.
