PlayStation shows the rollercoaster of console generations in one simple slide

Sony's key strategy is soften the platform-transition bump from previous years by improving recurring revenue from services such as PlayStation Plus. Though it's still predicting that this will reduce operating profit down to ¥130-170bn (£880m to £1.16bn) in 2020 as it "crouches down" before the hardware refresh.

[2pacalypsenow]

Those dark PS3 days

[KillZallthebeast]

Maybe for sony, but I enjoyed the first resistance like crazy.

[dirkdady]

It really paints an amazing story - just look at how many yrs it took to make PS3 profitable and not once did they falter in doubling down on their investment to their world wide studios during that time.

[JMyers]

Yeah. Online was awesome. I played 1000 plus hours. Good story too. Resistance 3 was great too.

[PurpHerbison]

You know those are some dark ass days when the 360 was getting the RROD but was still the console of choice.

[Goldby]

you know it was dark ass days when the 360 was being outsold since the day ps3 released.

[AspiringProGenji]

Not mine, and the PS3 got much better than 360 after MgS4 and Uncharted 2 while 360 became a COD machine

[Cmv38]

Financially for Sony, sure. But for me, I loved the ps3. Much better than what the competition was offering.

[darthv72]

If you really look into the "circle of life" sort of thing... you will find that every company that had released a 3rd console suffered a drop in popularity compared to their 2nd or even the 1st. MS is experiencing it right now with their 3rd console.

Some call it the "3rd Console Curse" and it seems to fit. It could just be coincidence like how they say celebrities die in three's and what not.

[SuperSonic91]

Tsunami of 2005 destroying Sony manufacturing plants in Thailand
Economic Crisis of 2007
Earthquake and tsunami in Tokyo 2008
Transition from SD to HD
Microsofts media buyout assault
Cheap Wii
CELL architecture investment and complexity
Slow adoption of Bluray

[MephiSkA]

It seems to me like the PS3 was some kind of "trojan horse" to make Blu-Ray win against HD-DVD and that Sony was "happy" to be at loss on the Playstation side if it could help their investments in Blu-Ray technology on the entertainment side of the business. The PS3 was the main reason for the Blu-Ray adoption, the PS3 was available at around 500$ while the cheapest Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players were over 1k$.

[strayanalog]

Good find.

Whew, '06 was an extremely bad year (considering the console and company struggles I am not surprised), but that's how this market is.

[2pacalypsenow]

Sony as a company was really struggling in the mid 00's with their TV's, cameras and MP3 players, the PS3 only made it worse I think it started around 04/05, luckily they're bouncing back.

[Relientk77]

PS4 dominating

[kevnb]

I’m glad they supported the ps3 even though it was a huge loss for them.

[King_Lothric]

That shows the character and dedication that Sony has with their consoles.

[DialgaMarine]

That’s why Playstation is, and always will me, my primary hub for gaming. Sony more than proved themselves with PS3. Both MS and Nintendo would’ve abandoned that in a heartbeat.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I always think about where we would be if PS3 didn't suffer from it's cost and development issues. It did decently all things considered, but they were hit hard. Good to see they were able to bounce back.

[DialgaMarine]

In all fairness, Sony was seeing some serious fininancial troubles long before PS3. Even with PS2’s success, they were having a lot of trouble with their other divisions. Overall now though, they seem to be healthy and growing. It’d be interesting if they can become the $200 Billion giant they used to be.

[ocelot07]

Even though from 2006 to 2009 was bad for them. The PS3 was still a pretty damn good console one of my favourites.

[txboy05]

Ok MS your turn !

[Jrios355]

It's no secret that the PS3 was Sony's weakest generation, especially at the beginning with such a high price, complicated hardware, and small amount of decent exclusives at launch (Aside from Resistance: Fall of Man), but I'm glad they could turn things around over the years, gave us some of the best new IPs in a while, and heavily supported the console

From the likes of Resistance, Uncharted, inFAMOUS, Littlebigplanet, Motorstorm, and The Last of Us, small surprises like Heavenly Sword, MAG, Warhawk, and Journey, and new critically acclaimed games from existing IPs like Killzone 2, Ratchet and Clank Future series, and God of War 3. Let's not forget 3rd party exclusives such as Metal Gear Solid 4, and Valkyria Chronicles to go along with that.

It was a rough generation, but Sony managed to pull through, deliver, and end up in second place.

[nitus10]

In the high definition market for the PS3, XBox360 and Wii, Sony came in first place. The Wii which did lead but was only standard definition.

[Tzuno]

Ps3 launch price was a rip off.

[FallenAngel1984]

PS3 offered a better value over the competition. It lasted longer than Wii & 360 was far more expensive to get it to do everything PS3 could out of the box via expensive accessories

[franwex]

Well, it depends. Blu ray players at that time were pretty expensive; so it was the reason why it was expensive. I still use my original ps3 to watch movies 12 years later.
It had a pretty big HDD for the time at 60 gigs (which is upgradable and not proprietary), wifi, and free online multiplayer-which again I still use 12 years later.
I feel that my $600 was worth it considering that I still use it, and probably will for some time.

[Realms]

Yeah ok it had a blue ray player that at the time cost more than twice as much and was BC with all previous consoles. I still have my PS3 Fat boy and it works can't say the same for a lot of launch 360 consoles.

[nitus10]

Really?

I would not say that the launch PS3 was a rip off for what you got.

- How about Bluray (cheapest Bluray player in the market at the time).
- Inbuilt WiFi.
- HDMI output. Updatable later via a firmware upgrade.
- Optical audio connection.
- User swappable hard disk.
- No power brick (inbuilt power supply).
- Support for SD cards (although to be honest I did not find this useful)
- Original PS3 played PS1 (all PS3's can do this), PS2 and (of course) PS3 games.
- The PS3 controller supported six-axis control although the original controllers did not have dual shock support due to litigation with Immersion (Microsoft set the precedence on this). https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

It must be noted that the original PS3 did have support for another OS such as Linux, however, this was later removed (optional) due to security concerns. This was the only thing that Sony removed from the original PS3 and if you lived in the US you could get back a few dollars if you had the original receipt and stated that you really needed the "other OS" support. http://www.otherossettlemen...

[FallenAngel1984]

I’ve stuck with the PlayStation brand since 2001

[Wrex369]

Respect for showing the trends and numbers. Always good for perspective and to never rest on laurels.

[Hardiman]

Dark times in the early PS3 years but after the first Slim released I got one as did many and at that time there were quite a few exclusives to play.

They stumbled but recovered and supported the PS3 till the end and wound up turning a profit. They parlayed that momentum into the PS4 and we are where we are at today!