I don’t think there’s ever been a legitimate argument against the truth of that really, and it’s not hard to understand, every corporation is looking to make the most of their assets and market position. In this case I believe Sony is likely to find they’ve misjudged how much they can abuse their standing, but I can’t exactly blame them for trying.
Still it seems like console makers as a breed can’t deal with more than two full on successes in a row before they shoot themselves in the foot somehow. IMO Sony got away with murder once already so I always had a hunch they’d still be playing with the safety off this time around.
In the end, though, Sony still delivered enough quality titles to satisfy its fanbase, so it still has a great deal of good will with users.
The PS3 will still be a success, but we’ll likely see a much closer race this time around than we saw with the PS2/Xbox. How close is the big question.
Nintendo, on the other hand, has essentially been slowing carving out their own little mini-industry. They’ll do just fine.
Sure Abadd, there are reasons Sony has done so well and I’m not trying to take anything deserved away from them. That’s a little like saying Microsoft delivered thousands of applications and games to the PC world though, and in both cases the quality of software available is entirely separate from whether the platform is the most deserving on it’s innate functional merits.
Of course Sony has lots of good will with consumers, so did Nintendo going into the N64. There’s some parallel to that situation now with Sony being the last to launch, using a more expensive media format, and having to make good on the most inflated expectations of the generation. N64 had it’s “oh hey these games don’t look anything like Lawnmower Man!” moment of truth, and unlike PS2 some mainstream awareness of reality is actually filtering through in advance of PS3’s launch.
Obviously the state of ripened developer disgruntlement over Nintendo’s licensing attitude isn’t the same with Sony, but they’ve got some significant challenges now. Sony decided to skate out to much thinner ice than they really needed to.