So, what of Sony and Nintendo®? TGS will provide Sony with an opportunity to show off its next-gen plans in the same (very large and stiflingly humid) room as Microsoft. Ten paces at dawn, September 17th. Microsoft will shoot first, but Sony, wearing a Blu-Ray vest, will survive and reply with a fatal shot.

Before the PS2 was released in Japan, DVD had yet to be established as the ubiquitous media standard that it is today. Sony, with obvious vested interests, intends to push Blu-Ray in a similar manner, camouflaging Blu-Ray players as PS3 consoles. The inevitable rewards for Sony -- based on the fact that Japanese people love Japanese companies (and Sony is regarded as one of Japan's finest), as well as the powerful pull of Sony's PlayStation brand -- will be two-fold. Blu-Ray will outpace Toshiba's HD-DVD in the Japanese market, and the PS3 hardware and games will outsell both Xbox 360 and Revolution.

In sum, although the outcome is not likely to surprise anyone but the most ardent of MS devotees, Japan's next-generation game is planned out already: Microsoft and Nintendo® will trail Sony. By some distance.


The only possible hindrances to Sony's continued domination of the home console market in Japan -- and these are somewhat remote -- would be a Japanese branding of the Xbox 360, marketing the console under a Japanese company's revered name, and/or a renaissance of Nintendo®'s inspired, emotive game design. I really hope both of these proposals are being considered around very large tables in the air-conditioned conference rooms of Microsoft and NCL. And if they're not being discussed, why not? Without any drastic changes from its competitors, Sony has the next-gen sorted.