The Inquirer have a second of a two part opinion piece on-line (the first part is here) which speculates that the Playstation 3 is on the brink of entering a death spiral, e.g. lacklustre sales caused by high prices and not enough good games causes less new games and doesn't allow for price cuts and the spiral continues.

Interesting read, still annoys me that we have to pay £425 if we want one whilst they are roughly £300 in the States and even less than that in Japan. Still I doubt the PS3 is doomed, I suspect it's not going to be No.1 in the market though.

In the end, the better the games, and the more exclusive the games, the more consoles you sell. The more consoles you sell, the less they cost to make, and the more people buy. Why do they buy? Good games and low cost. Why is the cost low? Good games and lots sold. Why are the games good? Lots of potential customers. It is a positively reinforcing feedback loop.

The flip side of this is that if the games are not there, you don't sell many consoles. This drives costs up and sales down. Why don't they buy? Bad games and high cost. Why is the cost high? Bad games and few sales. Why are the games bad? Few customers makes it not worth the effort. This is the classic death spiral.