The Dark Age Of PlayStation (2005-2008)

A Corporation At The Top

When the PlayStation 3 was announced in May 2005, its predecessor had already achieved cumulative sales of 87 million. The PlayStation 2 was well on the way to matching the original PlayStation, which achieved a total of 104.25 million units.

In both the fifth and sixth console generations Sony had rode a wave of success, being miles ahead of the Nintendo 64 and the original Xbox respectively.

Such a massive success two times in a row undoubtedly bestowed Sony with ludicrously high profits from 1996 through to 2005 and this compelled them to begin work on the PlayStation 3 far sooner.

The third iteration began development as early as 2001 when the Japanese corporation starting pouring heavy funding into the development of a powerful new cell processors that would form the backbone of the system's architecture.

In cooperation with Toshiba and IBM, the project was very ahead of its time, aiming to be a substantial leap forward not just for gaming, but the entire tech sector.

Around the same time, the successor to the widely used DVD format was also in the works.

Sony had formed the Blu-ray Disc Association in 2002. In partnership with several television makers, they also wanted to push physical media. It was a forward-thinking philosophy, one that the PS3 would take full advantage of, though little did Sony know that this would also damage the brand.