Screen Digest: 2008 is PS3's year

Piers Harding-Rolls, senior games analyst at Screen Digest, believes that while 2007 is firmly the year of Nintendo, 2008 might see some significant change.

A brief report highlighting the key features of several technology markets pointed to some long-awaited exclusive content, as well as a new raft of multi-media services, which could propel the PlayStation 3 to the forefront of the console battle.

"One of the market shifts to watch out for in 2008 will be the continued evolution of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 from games consoles to multi-media hubs," said Harding.

"Now that these multi-media services — online video, IPTV, digital terrestrial TV and PVR functionality - are now available or poised to come on line in different markets, this 'hub' strategy is emerging as a key console battleground for Microsoft and Sony."

Another section of the report mentioned the ongoing struggle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD, and analyst Richard Cooper believes that this landscape could also change significantly.

"Next year we expect to see shifting alliances, and with such a delicate stalemate, it's only going to take one major player to swap sides and the market will shift seismically. We believe this will happen over the course of 2008, with major players moving to format-agnostic or format-exclusive positions.

"Both formats must start to make an impact on the HDTV viewer next year if hi-def is to become more than just a niche market — we have seen hardware prices drop in 2007, but the battle over content in 2008 will be the year this storm breaks."