DFC analysts say Sony's PS3 may "end up third"

DFC Intelligence -- a market-forecasting agency -- have recently released their likely scenarios regarding the upcoming war o' consoles. They have an interesting set of scenario guidelines/factors they used in setting up how Sony would turn out. How'd they turn out? They say last third place. But keep in mind, they said, "When we say the PlayStation 3 could end up in third place that is a worst case scenario for Sony."

If we look at the bulleted list on the site, the first three, summarized as:

• Current market position
  

• Current software library
  

• Other consoles' current software libraries

There is no question Sony rocks the socks off of analysts for the first three points. The rest of the list? A little harder to discern a clear victor. These points consider:

• Expecting upcoming software for the PS3 (debatably good or bad)

• Upcoming software for competitors (debatably good or bad also)

• Price of PS3 measured against rivals
  

• Chance/amount of price drop

• Hardware/WOW! (NOT World of Warcraft...) factor
  

A lot of debate had been risen from the fact GTA4 won't be exclusive to the PS3, however, according to DFC Intelligence, less than 20% of PS2 owners bought any of the titles. In fact, " Without GTA buyers, the PS2 would still have outsold the competition by more than 3 to 1." Nice. That's good news, even if speculation. So, will PS3 fall prey to the worst case scenario, or manage to stay on top (or even second) by the skin of its beautiful, beautiful teeth? Again, the Tokyo Game Show will hopefully give PS3 more positive press.

[Edit: changed GTA4 won't be coming ... to GTA4 won't be exclusive to. Thanks, J. Dock]