Awesome new handheld unveiled!!!

[Private Hudson]

It was Sony's great luck, and not great strategy, that Nintendo AND Sega had BOTH just messed up really badly right around the time they came out with their system! If either Nintendo or Sega had had their act together it never would have happened like it did... but neither one did, so they were there and ready to exploit the other's troubles.

See the thing is, neither of them DID mess up really badly. Had Sony not entered the fray with a machine that did everything right (CD based format that was easy to develope for), no-one really would have said that the N64 fucked up for using the cartridge, and no one would have said that the Saturn fucked up by being difficult to program for, as both would have been massivly successful.

It wasn't Sony's great strategists that got Sega to make the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn in quick succession, all flawed in the eyes of the public, destroying their credibility... it wasn't Sony's brilliant engineers who designed the N64 to use carts... no, that was just stupid moves from the competition that they were all too happy to exploit.

Exactly, Sony were given an opportunity, and they exploited it fully. Through brilliant marketting and developer relations.

So yes, I would say that Sony got leadership of the industry through luck.

A little luck, and great skill.

Call it stupid moves from the competition and good advertising if it makes you happy, though.

Stupid moves from the competition can only take you so far. Look at this generation. The PS2 was plagued with problems, yet Sony have still come out stronger than ever. You would think Microsoft would have surely been able to come through with sheer luck based soley on the stupid moves on behalf of Sony

And it had absolutely nothing to do with great hardware design.

Sure it did. Why do you think Sony earned developer favoritism over the Saturn early on, despite selling neck and neck with it?