Anyone who thought Sony were dead this generation clearly under-estimated the power of brand recognition and the pull of their more popular titles. What we’re seeing now is this beginning to take hold as the date to the launch of said titles nears.
As for their changing fortunes with regards the points you mentioned, well again we’re seeing some development teams getting into their second and third generation games, a situation one would expect to go with them becoming more comfortable with the platform. As for their sales, well thank the price cuts, success of Blu-Ray and the upcoming release of their big titles for that. The bundling of the console with these titles will do nothing but bolster their sales also.
Finally you have the games. Now while GT5 and MGS4 are indeed huge titles and will sell the console one must remember that they are still only two games and as such, won’t solve the PS3’s main problem…a poor catalogue of games.
As for Home and LBP, they are not guaranteed winners either. Sure Second Life is popular but whether or not there is a demand for it on the Playstation Network remains to be seen. Also LBP will rely solely on user created content and that in itself can be seen as a double edged sword. While the likes of Bungie have found huge success with their Forge system for Halo 3 even they admitted that even in the face of success there is such a thing as too much content. Over time there is so much of it that it becomes impossible to categorize, maintain quality levels and even find what you’re looking for among the myriad of options out there. On the other hand there may simply not be enough content created to retain peoples interest.
Either way yes, things are looking up for them, but in fairness it was only ever going to go this way. At least now the titles that everyone has been shouting about since the consoles launch over a year ago are nearly upon us.