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Rumours of Playstation 3 in 2003
aosgood writes "PS3 in 2003? Bloomberg's got a story
from some manufactures stating that they are to begin trial runs next month. All I can say is WOW. "Cell" is ready?" I've got my doubts on the veracity of this information - unidentified sources and all. But it does indicate that even if it's not this year, Sony may be rolling the 3 out sooner then previously thought.Update: 03/10 14:50 GMT by H : Yep Sony has begun denying it.
I heard some talk of this at the Game Developer's Conference. A couple of the speakers (Warren Spector is the only one who's name I remember) mentioned it in their lectures.
They don't have to do it. There's no way XBox or GC can ever catch up to the PS2. There is really no reason for Sony to release this in 2003, and probably no reason in 2004 either. They've won the war. I think a PS3 release this year could only hurt them.
Kickin' it self-righteous school.
I am willing to bet that bloomberg have got the story wrong, for starters their sources do not sound very credible. I think that that are confused with what has been dubbed the PS2.5, a new version of the Playstation 2, much like the psone was to the psx.
Sony was the first major game console maker I can think of that allowed reverse compatibility with its previous products. You couldn't use NES carts in Super NES, nor SNES in N64, etc. The XBox should allow reverse compatibility and, to some, is a superior platform to PS2. However, Sony has the stronger mindshare.
But things change. The PS needs to stay competitive, and I was very concerned in news that PS3 wouldn't show as fast as Microsoft could update its XBox.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I would put a lot of money on it not being available this year.
This article reeks of "reports" from another source which itself has "unverifiable contacts" etc. etc.
Even if the hardware is progressing quickly it would be a watershed moment in the industry for a concept on the scale of complexity of Cell to be available 2 YEARS early.
Also what about the games? So you release the console 2 years early and have no games available for it? No way, this story is rubbish, read my lips, the PS3 will not be available for purchase this year.
Sony's strategy would be undermined by releasing the PS3 now. Look how long the PS1 was on the market for, personally I see this as a great thing, I know when I buy a Sony console it will be around for a LONG time compared to other consoles, and that means a huge guaranteed selection of games in the future etc. etc. This is a key part of the Sony strategy that they would never go against even if the hardware was ready.
One thing I hope it comes with is a CD burner... I think there is a great market for home users to burn compilations of tunes onto CD, and would be a gateway technology for home users downloading tunes from some online service... let's not forget how big a record label Sony themselves are... that's an asset Microsoft could NEVER approach...
-Nex
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I don't think we're very likely to see this in 2003..
AC said: Did you actually read the article?
Amazingly, yes-- I read the article. I know it is quite fashionable to pop in early comments without reading the article, but I was just shining a little skepticism on the "mid-year Japanese launch, US launch by end of year" comment. It's already March. A couple of engineering samples and manufacturing tests hardly covers Quality Assurance, and development time for a "launchable" base of games-- even a dozen or so-- within 90 days for the Japanese market.
Besides the fact that Sony needs (and probably wants, to avoid chaos in the retail sector) a million units on hand before release. That in itself would take (an optimistic) 90 days on a fully ramped manufacturing pipeline.
Again, I am completely uninformed though, as I originally stated.
It's great to hear that the Playstation will be updated. But honestly, who wants to dish out another $500? I'm still debating whether or not to buy a PS2.
But knowing how the game world works. Most people will run out and buy one the very same day it is released. This is madness. They are just doing what Sony wants them to do. Purchasing the console at an inflated price for maximum profit. If you go buy a PS2 right now for $300(Canadian), the store's profit is about $5. Compared to the $200+ when it is first released.
In all reality, I'll probably buy one. But not until the price drops.
'Give me one more medicated peaceful moment'
It isn't the fact that they've won already, it's the fact that their standard games all look like total ass on High Def TVs, unlike the Cube and XBox .. They need to keep updating so people can get the games looking good on their sets. Just because they have 25 million owners doesn't mean none of us want some upgraded technology for our spoiled lifestyles.
The author of the article doesn't seem to get that an early launch can work against you as much as launching late. Drive the PS2 to obsolescence now, and you piss off developers with software in the works, and gamers who just bought one. Not to mention that a launch now would mean exactly zero launch titles for the PS3, since I doubt most developers have the final specs, let alone an actual development unit. And if they did manage to miraculously pull a title out of their proverbial rear ends, it probably wouldn't be very good considering the huge complexity of the PS3's proposed architecture (something on the order of 74 processors total).
This rumor can't be true for the simplest and most basic reason - the money doesn't work.
You build consoles and sell them at a huge loss. It's a multi-billion dollar gamble only the largest players can attempt. If you win, you get a piece of the action for every product sold on your (dominant) platform, _and_ over time, your margin on the hardware comes back out of the red, and you make a profit selling that too. Sony has now been profitable on the PS2 hardware for some moderately short period of time.
In order to make the billions necessary to go it again in the next round, you have a nice, long run with each platform. This is one of the good things about the console business model. Rather than the upgrade race the PC software vendors and hardware manufacturers like to suck you into, the console vendors are incentivized to make each revision of their hardware go as long as possible, so as to maximize their profits.
While Sony may be concerned about Microsoft's growing marketshare, last I checked XBox wasn't even close to PS2's penetration. Trying to pre-empt xbox2 may be on Sony's mind, but given that sales of PS2 hardware and software are exceptionally strong (in fact, record breaking) right now, releasing a successor product will just kill their money factory. Yes, I'm sure prototype hardware will be floating around before long, and I'm sure the first games that will come out on the system have already begun. But Sony will wait as long as humanly possible before a retail release. Only lagging sales, or (much more likely) Microsoft and Nintendo will push them out of the gate, and it's way too soon for that.
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1. They don't want to kill current sales of PS2. If they announced now that there would be a new platform for Christmas worldwide it would kill current sales. Also, if they do plan on launching before Christmas and then miss the date they have just killed their sales year. You can be sure that if they think they have something that will be ready for this year, they won't announce it until there are SURE they can deliver.
2. They don't want to alert Microsoft to what is going on. Everyone says that it would be impossible to release a PS3 this quickly, but what about an XBox2? By using what is basically commodity hardware again MS can develop and release a backwards compatible followup to the XBox with relatively little effort. They will be able to meet a Sony launch date with much less prep time. So not tipping off MS would be a huge reason to not hype the PS3 until just before launch.
3. The "surprise" of a new console this quickly will be hype enough. Think about it. How blown away would people be if this were true? It will generate its own hype. Especially if the tech is good.
I think that if you though about it for a while you could probably come up with some reasons of your own why operating in stealth mode would be an advantage even though it is n't what they have done in the past. Remember though, that while your reasoning might be flawed, it doesn't mean that the article is accurate.
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I think if Company X, Company Y, and Company Z have taught us anything it is that you can't define a market strategy that will always work in a sentence. Yes, sometimes lesser products to gain footholds because of lead time and sometimes they don't. In business, it's not always quality that is king. There are quite a few more issues and trying to simplify those, as you did or as the parent did, are just going to fail.
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There was an article on the IBM intranet a few months ago (the PS3 chip is being developed jointly by Sony, IBM and Toshiba), which says "Japan's Sony Corp plans to outpace its main rivals into the next generation of game machines by launching a successor to the PlayStation 2 (PS2) in 2005, earlier than expected".
Somehow, 2005 seems far more likely to me - releasing the PS3 is pointless until the PS2 is actually threatened.
In response to the comment about the XBox 2...
It seems to be a moot point to me, as the XBox is already doing pretty rotten in the GAMES department, which is generally what makes or a breaks a system.
Do you think, to add insult to injury, Microsoft would spring a NEW $300 system on the unsuspecting public ? Who gives a DAMN about backwards compatibility - we're talking simply about consumer willingness to purchase a new system every 6 months!
-Leothequick
It's plausible that there will be PS3 units available to developers 2 years in advance of its release to the public, considering that it took developers two years to figure out how to heck to program the PS2, and the PS3 is supposed to be far more complicated to program. Sony doesn't want to repeat the release of the PS2, where it was released to much fanfare and then no really good games were available for years, after which people actually started switching to the system.