Sony's Looking At Profitability Ahead Of The Sales War With Microsoft.

PlayStation's senior software brand manager told IndustryGamers that, contrary to popular belief, the platform holder is not obsessed with catching up to the XBOX 360.

"So do we pass Xbox 360?" he asked. "At the moment, I think we're trying to just keep up with inventory and trying to move as many units as we can through the channel.

"It's also one of those things where, do we notice what Microsoft is doing? Obviously, they are our competition. But is it like we surpass Microsoft or we fail? No. Our goal is to be profitable and we're going to achieve that this year and do even better next year.

"That's been Nintendo's position for years. We have a very aggressive plan this year. And when we're profitable we're happy. If we happen to close the gap with Microsoft in the meantime, then that's good too."

Finally. Finally, someone tells it how it is. Apparently people can only see in black-and-white. So what if the XBOX 360 and Wii sell an additional number of units? It doesn't really mean the PS3 is doomed like some armchair analysts often assume. No doubt Sony would love to be on top, but sometimes you need to be rational about these things. The counter point we often make is thus: if business has no grey area, why on Earth do Pepsi continue to compete in the soft-drink business?

"We obviously are very bullish on our platform," McCarthy added. "We do feel like we have a great message with Move... and we feel we have the strongest line-up we've ever had coming this year.

"PS3 has superior technology inside the box, and this is going to be the year where we make a lot of noise based on the exclusive titles you're going to be able to play.

"Those things together will give us a voice. We gained a lot of momentum with the 'It Only Does Everything' message, and that was a great hardware message, but this year we're going to follow it up with another punch that is an 'Only on PlayStation' message.

"You know, LittleBigPlanet 2 led us off; then we've got Killzone 3, SOCOM, inFamous 2, Twisted Metal, Uncharted, Resistance... the list goes on. And that's excluding Move specific software. For the gamer there's a lot to look forward to, and for the Move consumer there's also a lot to look forward to."

When you're battling for second-place, is it even a worthwhile fight anymore? We'll take the fantastic software line-up over the sales war, thank you. Of course, this does put a dampener on those waiting for a price-drop. We had expected a $50 cut around now, but it looks like you're going to have to wait until E3.