Next-gen console winner emerges

ALL THREE NEXT-GEN consoles are now out, and looking at all the stores over the weekend, there is one clear winner - Samsung.

Yes, Samsung. If you look closely, the firm has a TV on every next-gen rig in the stores. Any big box store has two or three Samsung HD TVs plugged in and running the latest games.

On the odd PS3 console demo there is a Sony TV.

Most big US retailers visited - Best Buy, Target and some smaller chains had Samsung TVs. They looked to be 24-inch 720p models. This means that for the Koreans, the launch of the consoles meant 30K+ sales of TVs likely at a vastly higher margin than the consoles they plug into.

So, with every console launch, you can add up the millions of dollars lost, hundreds shipped in every box. Isn't it ironic that the one company profiting is the one which could have jumped into the market but was smart enough not to. µ