James

It has been said before and someone has just got to say it this week:

"IT STILL PRINTS MONEY!"

Man, as an accountant even I got all giggly over news like this. Nintendo has got to be rolling in so much money it needs to buy a third bank to keep it all in.

A critical RPG with a heck of a storyline?

How about Fallout or the Baldur's Gate series'? Those storylines had you gripped into the game. Probably why they are still so looked upon these days.

And many writers may also want to take into account games within hidden storylines like Half-life 2 amd F.E.A.R. Even though you had practically no idea what was going on, it still captivated audiences. That is something you have to take into account if you want to really make a hit for any system.

*eyes Yuji Naka*

Yeah, I'm watching you. Pay attention. You'll be quizzed later on this stuff.

I am neither for or against Sony right now, nor am I defending any other company. Of sorts, I guess you could call me a "freelance" analyst of sorts when I say this:

This path Sony has taken has many new ideas that can go many ways. To take any single path could be for the worse or the better. The reason is that it comes down to how well this plan is implemented. Give it a few months before you come to major conclusions. However, it is best said this will have ramifications in the industry, period. This will be a great rivalry against Nintendo's Mii culture at the moment. However, it may also be a rival against most other cultures that use electronic communities (the WoW community, Second Life, etc.) I believe this is the group Sony is truly targeting now. And this is a large segment.

And it is also why it comes to how well this gets implemented. It could either be a great revolution or a great flop. All you can do is watch and see what they do.

Nintendo and Microsoft should at the very least pay attention to this. Chances are, this may impact them more than they may believe.

As for the game, good idea for a community to play together and havve fun. I just wonder if it will be worth the price, assuming it remains at the $60 mark. Chances are, they will have to lower it a bit to get it sold enough and to maybe raise PS3 sales.

That's all.

And guys, quit with the harrassment of Sony for pure speculation. The same goes for the other companies, too. It's just irritating.

Did anyone notice that the Wii, by itself mind you, outsold all of Sony's consoles (PSP, PS2, and PS3) in units?

That has got to be some of the best market share I have ever seen. Nintendo rules at business when it comes to knowing how to sell a system. Wonder if we could get some game sales info with that.

And just so you know by looking at these figures, it really does print money.

And craps gold bricks.

Well, at least Sony is getting SOME good news. As long as they can prevent the system's death, everything should be fine.

What worries me most is if the PS3 does so horribly that Sony completely divests the system before it runs its course. However, this likelihood is almost negligible. Sony has a lot of reserves of funds and other lines to rely on to prevent that.

One has to wonder, though, just how long this sort of loss can be sustained until significant profits start occurring. 2 years? 3? Any predictions?

There is a rather large worry that they should be keeping in mind. Advertising.

I'm sure everyone has seen the ads for PS3 that excessively try to sell the hardware itself, but how many of you have seen ads for its games other than Resistance?

This is probably their largest problem. They have to get it out there that they have a lot of good games to select from for such a system. The problem is that many of these games are neither very exciting, or not advertised very well.

Even stranger is that they seem to be losing support for Blue-Ray. How many of these movies have been promoted on TV and on the net. Not enough.

Personally, I think that's where they should concentrate on. Advertising as well as producing awesome titles and PR are going to be mandatory for such an expensive system's survival.

Can someone answer a question for me?

How many units of the PS3 has Sony shipped and had returned to them?

To give a comparison point, do the same for the Wii.

Compare these numbers and then find out the income for each of these systems. This gives you total income figures for the systems, giving a comparison point for each company on the basis of systems themselves.

Next, find the income from each of the systems' games.

Add these incomes together and you have the current financial condition of the operating condition each system is in.

If you can figure out these figures, you have your best console.

We'll leave the XBox360 out of this for simplicity's sake. You can try it if you like, but it's rather complex if you do. I recommend doing this in Excel if you do.

Can you answer the question?

The general rule is that as more competition enters the market, pricing as a result becomes more fierce. This is true of every market, even computer chips. This is why Intel and AMD have been at each others throats for so long.

What Toshiba needs to make sure is that their operations and costs are of such a level as to be competitive in the long run. It must be able to handle the applications it needs to run, be effective for continual improvement, and useful in the long-run as well. Target costing techniques should handle that problem easy as it seems to be the standard these days.

Getting financing shouldn't be too hard for Toshiba as they got other sources than Sony to rely on. I am also sure they can get help from other sources if they run into difficulty.

@2: Amen. It is insanely hard to get demos for the DS around here. This is a college campus, but there are practically no hot spots here. And those that are hot require a password to enter, rendering use of a DS out.

Why do I smell smoke on the horizon for this company?

Oh wait, that's the PS3. *rimshot*

Jokes aside, I'm inda curious what they would put into such a game. Chances are they will add characters that probably shouldn't be in a Kingdom Hearts game. Megaman Legends comes to mind specifically.

However, seeing Katamari Damacy in there would be a freakin' riot. xP