On Friday, Sony declares war on the video game market with the launch of its new PlayStation 3. It should be the most exciting technology event of the year. Instead, it’s in danger of falling flat. So what went wrong?

In a word: Wii. The PS3 was originally scheduled to arrive here last November, but manufacturing difficulties led to the launch being postponed. This has allowed its arch-rival Nintendo to steal a march with the Wii console, which has been a sensation since it launched in November. The Wii, priced at £179, has put the fun back into gaming (if you can find one in stock — try www.wii-consoles.co.uk) and converted people who would never previously have considered owning a console.

The PS3, by comparison, is a serious piece of kit, at the serious price of £425. It is aimed squarely at those who already play games, people who will spend hours immersed in a title, rather than the casual gamers that Nintendo has attracted. What’s more, the PS3’s predecessor, the PS2, is still a perfectly adequate machine and costs £375 less. Does Sony seriously expect its new machine to match the ten million UK sales of the PS2? We take a look at the new machine’s features, and weigh up the pros and cons.

GAMES LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE

Yes: the PS3 is built for the latest flat-panel TVs, offering high-definition images, amazingly detailed backgrounds and super-fast movement. The new generation of games has been developed to make the most of these abilities, and new games such as Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man will take your breath away.

But no: all this technical excellence comes at a price: £425. What’s more, the PS3 offers little that’s genuinely new in gaming, at least among the launch titles, which include the usual fighting, shooting and driving games: Ridge Racer 7, Virtua Fighter 5, Sonic the Hedgehog, anyone? On the software front, this high-tech marvel is left floundering by Nintendo’s Wii, which is still outselling the PS3 in Japan by four to one.

FILMS LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE

Yes: the PS3 is the first mass-market machine to play the latest high-definition video discs, called Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray, backed by Sony, Apple, HP and Panasonic, is a rival to the HD-DVD format, backed by Toshiba, Microsoft and Intel. Most film studios will release films on both formats, until the format war dies down. In the meantime, it’s VHS v Sony’s Betamax all over again, except that this time Sony owns its own Hollywood studio.

Blu-ray is stunning. Picture quality is flawless, and PS3 owners will surely shift from DVDs to new Blu-ray discs.

But no: Blu-ray offers high-definition images of up to 1080p. Think of the numbers as lines on a TV screen. Current UK TV has 625 lines, so 1080 is almost twice as crisp. However, the smallest flat-panel TVs capable of the 1080 resolution are

37 inches wide. Smaller than that and you’re on 720 resolution. Still good, but not quite the same leap. Also, here’s a selection of the first swath of Blu-ray film releases: SWAT, Ice Age 2, Into the Blue, Click, The Transporter. Not exactly the connoisseur’s choice, is it?

PLAY VIA INTERNET

Yes: as well as everything else, the PS3 is essentially a personal computer. Users with a broadband connection can surf the web on their TV sets, and even download content to the PS3, which has a 60 gigabyte hard drive, similar in size to those found in many PCs. Serious computer types can also install Linux, the free alternative to Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Sony lags behind Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in online gaming, but is now out to catch up. Some PS3 titles will feature the ability to play over the internet, and Sony recently announced the creation of Home, a virtual online world where PS3 owners can meet and live “second lives”.

But no: many of these features are in reaction to similar features offered by Nintendo or Microsoft. The attractions of surfing the web on a giant TV are limited. Judgment must be withheld until launch of the other online features.

MULTIMEDIA OPTIONS

Yes: as well as the USB ports, the PS3 also has slots for most multimedia cards, such as those used in digital cameras, and the hard drive can store photographs, music tracks, or even films. The PS3 can also read an iPod’s contents, allowing users to copy over their own MP3s (digital rights management restrictions apply).

But no: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 already does all of this, for half the price, and can stream content from a PC.

THE VERDICT

The PS3 is, without doubt, the most technically advanced machine of its type. It’s impossible not to be impressed by the quality of the images and the ease with which it performs the tasks you set it. This is a serious piece of kit. And that’s part of the problem. Aren’t games supposed to be fun? The PS3 console is a stylish, but cold, piece of industrial design. It exudes cool, but does not make you want to touch it in the way, say, Apple’s products always do. And at £425, this is the high-end arena where the PS3 needs to compete.

Sony has also handled the launch badly. Last November it delayed the European launch by four months, then this month announced that European consoles would player fewer older PS2 games than their American and Japanese counterparts.

At the console’s launch in Tokyo last year, Phil Harrison, President of Sony Computer Entertainment’s worldwide studios, denied that the delay and price would be a problem: “We know that serious gamers will buy all consoles available. It’s an established pattern.”

This attitude typifies Sony’s attitude to its customers. Nor are the launch games very compelling. At the Japanese launch of the PS3, Ken Kutaragi, the “father” of the PlayStation, addressed this lack of innovation by developers. “We have been relying too heavily on easy-to-sell sequels, and our users have become passive,” he said. There’s no sign yet that anyone was listening.