10 Biggest PlayStation Risks (That Totally Backfired)

When it comes to critical and financial successes, Sony surprised everyone when it went into the console market in the 90s. Back when Nintendo and Sega dominated, Sony's little grey box had a lot riding on it.

Cue some twenty five-or-so years and four more home consoles later, and Sony are still up at the top. The PlayStation 2 being the best selling console of all time, with the PS4 in fourth, are good indicators of that.

Despite the success, it hasn't always been smooth sailing for the Japanese tech giant. Not one but two handheld console failures, for example, mar their track record.

Whilst PSVR is a growing market now, there was a time when Sony jumped on the gimmick bandwagon too soon as well, or put out some nostalgia bait that failed to even do that.

It's not all hardware though, as there have been some total misfires when it comes to launch titles, or competition killers over the years too. Worse yet is trying to emulate the success of other retro offerings and failing at that as well. Which is shocking, given Sony's early gaming pedigree.

So whilst they may be flying high now, there have been some failures throughout the decades. Here are ten examples that maybe aren't the most financially devastating, but certainly the most memorable.

As a rule of thumb in business, it tends to be "wait for the competition to launch, then undercut the price a bit to sell more". Sell at less, but sell more in the long run.

However, it seems someone in Sony's marketing didn't get the memo when the company was launching the PS3.

Already lagging behind the Xbox 360's launch, Sony had to do something to catch up. However, offering the 60gb model at £425, nearly £150 more than the Xbox, was not the way.

Even at that price, Sony were reportedly working at a loss per unit.

Eventually they balked, and the price was lowered to something more consistent with the competition. But for a time, the PS3 was considered too expensive compared to the relatively manageable Xbox 360 price.

It took a few years, with Sony finally starting to see profit on their third console in 2009. Lessons were learnt with the PS4, which managed to sell a whopping 110m units over its lifetime.

But had Sony stuck to their expensive guns, they may have pushed themselves out of the market in 2006.