Brands: PS3

The Playstation 3 is coming. BusinessWeek's newsletter I received last week was about the new console war between Sony's new PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's XBox 360.

Sony kicked off last weekend in Japan. Introduction in Europa is foreseen for March 2007.

Sony is bound to win the war says BusinessWeek. Five reasons:
1. XBox's mindshare among gamers cannot compare to that of PlayStation, which is way higher.
2. The XBox 360 is tracking below market expectations.
3. To win the worldwide battle, one needs strong positions in North America, Europe ánd Japan. The XBox 360 was an outright failure in Japan, and despite renewed efforts Microsoft continues struggeling in Japan.
4. Blu-ray (a kind of new high capacity DVD) provides PS3 developers with much more storage space.
5. PS3 will offer full online gaming and other online features completely free from day one, while XBox is still charging for some services.

In six months time we'll probably know who will pull the longest string.

Meanwhile TBWA\Chiat Day L.A. unleashes new commercials for PS3. This is one of them:


It's a quite daring ad. Will it contribute to the success of PS3, or will it do more harm than good. What do you think? Feel free to comment.