Sony taking a big, but survivable, hit

Kotaku links to this Reuters item that Sony says it will take a 100 billion yen loss ($900 million) this year because of PlayStation 3 startup costs. If Sony is admitting that so far ahead of the fall, it's a pretty good indication they will be pricing the PS3 as a mass-market machine. $400 is still my guess.

That also doesn't seem like a company-killing number. I still think it's a bad idea for Sony to be taking an unnecessary beating just for the sake of Blu-ray, but $900 million doesn't seem like the catastrophic loss I thought Sony might be forced to take. Microsoft lost billions on the first Xbox, and that was just to get the company name associated with games in people's minds; it was a billion-dollar buy-in. At least Sony will be making the bet for something more concrete.