On the other side of all these analysts claiming Sony will kick the competition to the curb after a few years... there are those who believe the brand of Sony is in trouble -- the brand name may no longer garner enough support to get consumers to pay the high price. Ugh, focusing on price again... did the pre-order madness not indicate that people will whine, but will still spread their wallets wide open when the time comes? Anyway, let's look at this anti-Sony argument.

Fitch Research analyst Tatsuya Mizuno says Sony has "not been able to capitalize on its competitive strengths, including strong electronics expertise and huge movie and music software libraries." The PS3 will also demand a longer recoup period for the costs of manufacturing compared to the PS2 -- due both to more competition and to the battery fiasco.

Another place, Kuriyama's Hovel on MySpace (instantly passable as worthless -- MySpace is ridiculous), said this lovely tidbit about Sony's hypothesized holiday loss: "Of course by this time next year they'll be decrying pirates as the reason they've failed to establish a substantial foothold in the next-gen market ... After the genius of releasing the Playstation originally, they really have done their best to run themselves into the ground." Have they? It's been a rough year, but is that really all it takes to destroy a company? We'll continue to believe the PS3 will pull through and Sony will flick these annoying flies away from its face. In any case, check out the article for the other pieces we missed -- LCD TV competition, etc. It's all good, but it's about as true as the pro-Sony advocates. Meaning we just don't know.