Gamers are approximately three months away from the launch of the Playstation 3, yet positive buzz seems hard to come by for Sony’s new console. At E3 2005, it looked like Sony had the goods to dominate the next round of the console war. But since then, it seems like Sony is getting battered by all sides by bad news. Jack Schofield at the Guardian looks at why Sony is having so many problems.

Shofield traces the issues back to the Killzone demo shown at E3 2005; while Sony initially claimed this to be gameplay footage, but general consensus on the Internet was that this was pre-rendered. When Sony followed up at E3 2006, the demonstrations shown were markedly less impressive. Couple these issues with the general lack of polish of their pre-E3 announcement and one can see why mindshare in the gaming public started to shift.

Other high profile problems with Cell and Blu-Ray also surfaced, further tarnishing the PS3’s reputation. Shofield suggests that Sony’s methods of dealing with incorrect or bad news on the Internet hardly helps their problem. While Microsoft has Larry Hyrb and his Major Nelson blog to help defuse erroneous statements on the Internet, Sony responds via public relations. When the Sony heads of state do respond to bad news, their responses are typically seen as either arrogant or rude.

When Shofield talked to Phil Harrison, though, he got a fairly upbeat response. According to Harrison, 10,000 development kits have shipped, and many developers now have Blu-ray burners, so disc-based development is proceeding. Harrison claims that 100 games are currently in development. Sony still has its backers; there are developers that believe in the Playstation 3, and many believe that Blu-Ray can be a real differentiator. Given Sony’s past success, it is hard to bet against the company, but companies can lose large leads quickly. Witness Sega and Nintendo, whose missteps took them out of their leading positions in the console wars. Nintendo has since regained a lot of respect, but it has been a hard fight for them. Sony’s lead in the gaming arena means that the battle is still theirs to lose, but Sony will need some good buzz leading up to their launch to help them succeed.