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Playstation 2 U.S. Release Scaled Back
A reader submitted: "Sony has set back the release of the Playstation 2 due to component shortages. The Europe release date has been reset to Nov. 24th, but a US date has not been confirmed." We've been seeing a lot of conflicting submissions over the last few days -- and conflicting information from Sony. But what it looks like now is that the initial release, for the U.S., is set for Oct. 26th, and the number of the machines to be shipped has been scaled back by half.
Sony is scaling back shipments on PS2 and I submitted it 900 times today and so far it's only been posted twice today! WTF! Why is Slashdot ignoring this story?!
The other half of this post will ship on or before christmas
When the Dreamcast came out, and there were massive hardware shortages and general release niggles (faulty GDs, etc.) the media had a bit of a field day. I hope they give Sony the same treatment: a console launch is fraught with difficulty, but Sony seem to have been making promises they can't keep.
Meanwhile, in the UK, anecdotal evidence suggests that preorders are slow, which is a good thing because we're only going to get half the initally promised allotment.
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One of the local EB's here in Syr. has already gotten in excess of 1500 preorders - only about 100-250 are paid off thusfar (mine is one of 'em). They are expecting to get 150 to the store on release day.
If Sony only takes into account the fully paid preorders, they are getting a LOT less than what the demand actually is.
A lot of people were waiting to pay them off, or were paying them off slowly over time. Chances are they won't get one until well after the launch, if the figures I'm seeing here are correct.
Especially since the PS/2 isn't exactly cutting edge technology. Come on! IBM quit making them YEARS ago. What makes Sony think they can bring them back to overwhelming demand?
OS/2 for PS/2, Half an operating system for half a computer.
You say you want a revolution....
I think this is a good move. It's better to have the release date slip then to release to few units. Sony doesnt want them selling on EBAY for 10 grand a pop.
This is interesting, I would have thought Sony would make a BIG debut for the holiday season. You know pump out lots of machines, advertise like mad, and generally saturate the minds of the populace with PS2.
Even with the so-called "scaled back" launch, the PS2 is still going to be the biggest console introduction ever. This is mentioned in most of the articles talking about the scaled back launch. 1.3 million consoles by Christmas as 3 million in six months is not something I'd call a botched launch, you know?
Nah, it started long before that. Remember when Coleco had "shortage problems" with the Cabbage Patch dolls? Other popular toys had the same effects, driven by the increadible force of kids whining for stuff. But hey, at least I got a complete set of He-man figures out of the deal :)
From the articles I've read (Yahoo, etc) the US date isn't changing, only the machines to be shipped initially.
Must be some newbie moderators who weren't around back in the days of the IBM PS/2 or something.
Yeesh.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I think the trick is to keep within the tolerance levels, hold a little back in reserver in case something goes horrible wrong. On one hand they have this incredible machine that people have been drooling over for years now I have no doubt in my mind that people will snatch them up like they are going out of style. On the other hand what if they ship with a bug, or faulty hardware? Then have a bad rap for releasing a buggy machine, or in the worst case scenario they will have to recall all of the machines, and that could be an expensive proposition.
Or maybe they are having troubles scaling up the demand, and the supply cannot meet the demand.. like the problem that Apple was having with there Motorala chips.
It should be interesting to see what there excuse is. I know one thing though. Parents are going to be buying their kids game consoles for the holiday season, and if they cant get a PS2 then "Oh well", they will just pick up a Dreamcast or N64. I hope Sony knows what they are doing.
I talked to CmdrTaco one time and Rob said "basically we don't post anything Microsoft-related", unless it's totally incendiary. Positive Microsoft stories (IE 5.5 supporting better DHTML, for example) will "never get posted".
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Do you ever read /. ? 'Cause those of us that do saw this story a few hours ago.
I bet most readers would prefer to see twice as many PS2s being produced, and half as many stories about them being late to market :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Read your own site much? the playstation delays were announced two days ago, then we've got two stories within two hours of each other here. Perhaps you people paid good money to run this site should read the site before going off to approve stories.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
2000-08-16 01:14:50 Caffeine added to Soda to create addiction? (articles,news) (rejected)
was posted on www.bottomquark.com on 8-15-00, a day before you submitted it to /.
If you like these sorts of stories, come on over to Bottomquark. You want articles, we want readers -- a match made in Heaven.
Ironically, we also had the PS2 story before Slashdot had it.
Come on Over!
OldSaxon
You like science?
You like science?
You like Bottomquark.
Abode, duplicate stories, I'd be careful in traffic dude!
Bleh!
ahem.
--
Matt Singerman
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
Back then, I'd read something on Slashdot that didn't make news anywhere else for at LEAST a day, and the stories were *interesting.*
These days, stories get repeated, and are usually covered elsewhere A) more in-depth, B) more accurate, and C) earlier.
Plus, redundant stories get posted, and potentially good stories are left out. Take some of my own submissions:
2000-07-06 16:24:29 Microsoft SQL Server Benchmarks withdrawn (articles,microsoft) (rejected)
2000-08-16 01:14:50 Caffeine added to Soda to create addiction? (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-09-25 17:45:31 Data Loss when shutting down Windows ME, possibly 98 (articles,microsoft) (rejected)
2000-09-27 19:15:09 Suspected Creator of 'ILOVEYOU' Chats Online (articles,news) (rejected)
Some of these topics are things that Slashdot readers would want to read about, but were ignored AND not covered at all!
People can easily say "Well, go to another site! Stop Complaining!" or, "If you can do a better job, make your OWN site! Stop complaining!" If I had the time and the resources to start my own site, I would. And the reason I don't trounce around other sites is because Slashdot compresses them all into one site.
If I didn't try to help, I wouldn't complain. But I *am* submitting cool stories. They're just getting passed over for redundant stuff like this.
I used to defend Slashdot against complaints like this....unfortunately now, they're actually substantiated.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
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