…it will only kill Sony.

Yes, the PS3 is expensive. Yes, the price will shun some would-be consumers. But no way will it hurt the industry, as some analysts are predicting.

See, I don’t know if anyone remembers this but we used to be a two-console society. Three if you count the Gameboy. But now we have the Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Gamecube, Wii, PSP, and DS. And don’t forget PC. Even though people may purchase every console that gets released, they won’t buy every title. That’s what drives the industry – software.

Gone are the days when a title sells a million copies for a single console. Now publishers flaunt their sales figures across every console. Pull support for one of those consoles, and if the title is good it will still sell in comparable numbers on the remaining consoles; I don’t think that any publisher is reeling from not supporting the Gamecube. But eliminate a console completely from the marketplace, and consumers – and software sales – will simply migrate to the most popular product. The potential that the PS3 may not succeed does not mean that those gamers who would buy it will go away.

And the driver of long-term profitability – software – should be happy about a two-console race. Eliminating support for a console means reduced development costs to support, and port to, the different platforms. It is this breadth of console support that is killing publishers, and quality suffers as a result – development teams are spread too thin, multiple versions of a title are still delivered within a single timeframe, retail space, porting discrepancies, etc. Reducing the risk of these variables will definitely help.

If the PS3 fails, Madden will still exist; EA, Activision and Ubisoft will still be making tons of games; and gamers will still satiate their need with their wallets. The only thing that will crash is Sony.