The overall outlook for Sony and its late-to-market PlayStation 3 may be getting a bit brighter, thanks largely and somewhat indirectly to the spurt in sales of HD sets in the past year, and a more cost-effective production arrangement for the PS3 game console which comes with an internal Blu-ray Disc drive.
But for Sony, its window of opportunity is closing quickly in its quest to play catch up to competitors Nintendo and Microsoft and, most importantly, to maintain the loyalty of professional videogame developers that is crucial at this stage, according to analysts speaking to Reuters.
Game console makers usually do not make a profit on sales of their consoles alone, but from later selling software royalties and other attributes of their proprietary products to game makers. The larger the base of game consoles in the home, the more attractive and potentially lucrative it will be for developers to invest in creating and selling games and, in turn, paying licensing fees to Sony, Microsoft and/or Nintendo for PS3, Xbox or Wii.
"It's a race against time," one analyst said, as Sony now tries to drive up PS3 sales to attract more developers into making more PS3 games and, thus, growing the network of at-home gamers.
Sony had started out on a bad foot with several ramp up delays and did not finally roll out PS3 until many months after the competition's launches. Now, because of PS3's inclusion of Blu-ray, the accelerating popularity of HD content on the large flatscreen apart from games may give PS3 an edge in the months ahead, some analysts believe. Stay tuned.
