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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 somehow doubt that this (unverifiable) story is true. There may be some prototype units being made to test the new 'Cell' processor architecture, but the debugging cycle of a new processor can be time consuming. If the chip is still under developement, we won't be seeing the final unit this year.
Smells like vapor...looks like vapor...maybe it is vapor!
To be honest, I think the whole "Playstation 3" thing being released in 2003 is bull. I mean, think about it... The Playstation 2 was released with a LOT of fanfare. It was announced 2 years before, pictures of the unit a year before... If this is indeed true, I would be deeply surprised. Sony's famous for it's marketing and hype machine.
;)
I would know, I fell victim to the hype. I wanted one so bad that I wanted to trade my left nut for it.
(Thankfully that didn't happen as I was cheated out of a PS2 at Walmart, although I was able to pick a used one up a few months later for $125. Don't ask.)
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
Whether Cell is ready or not, you still have to go through manufacturing trails, quality assurance, a big Japanese release (with requesite game titles), then a US release.
:)
Even with a reputable source like Bloomberg, the odds that Sony would have a US launch before Christmas would be long, in my completely uninformed opinion.
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 may be winning the console war, but I'd say their hold on their lead is pretty tenuous. They need to keep people buying their systems.
My impression, and I admit it's from a pretty cursory overview of the console world, is that the PS2 gets its market share because of its market recognition (the name "Playstation" means "home console" in much the same way "Atari" used to) and its huge game library. Folks who are real graphics nuts are talking about how much the PS2 lags behind the competitors in terms of how "pretty" the games are.
A fully backwards-compatible PS3 would definitely help this, without losing their two main advantages in the market. A PS3 that isn't backwards compatible had better have some real big pluses going for it.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
...for one reason only. PS2 is currently taking up the large share of the market as of right now, and sees now signs of slowdown. The only time that I think Sony would bring one out is when it sees imminent competition from the next consoles from microsoft or nintendo.
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.
Have they sent out any kits to game makers, you can't sell videogame console without games.
Whilst there is still some murky legal sniping going on around the PlayStation brand, the story you're thinking of (Sony lose rights to Nintendo and must pay silly amounts of money as royalties) was a hoax.
Sony will defend the PlayStation brand to the death - I'd say it's more valuable to them than 'Walkman' was in the '80s. Whilst I don't expect to see a PlayStation 3 in 2003, I do expect the natural successor to the PS2 to have the PlayStation moniker, whenever it comes out. Gamers love brands (think Nintendo, Sega, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Tomb Raider).
But, what will the Third Place be for PS3?
Why would Sony shoot themselves in the foot like this? They're the current console market leader with millions installed, everyone's developing games for their system and they make money off of every title sold. Hell, in the console war, they're still selling a less powerful machine for more money than the others. All the while, Microsoft is bleeding on each Xbox it subsidises. So according to this article, they go and ruin it all by making the public think the Playstation2 is going to be outdated this year? I don't think so...
I truly hope the PS3 will be backwards compatible. Definitely for PS2 games - as there are many I'm sure I will still play for years to come. PS1 would be nice too, but I rarely play any PS1 games anymore - I've got a few kicking around (King's Field, Vandal Hearts, and Frogger for the wife) - but heck it's probably trivial for them to include PS1 compatibility so they'd better do it!!
One thing I would like to see that annoyed me about PS2- I think that they should've included the ability to partition off a small space in the PS2 memory card for a PS1 compatible storage area- it's a pain to swap cards (the PS1 cards don't always seem to like to fit as nice). If the PS3 has a HDD or higher capacity capabilities of some sort, I truly hope they allow this sort of thing for PS2 and PS1 media!
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
This sig has been deprecated.
My favourite word has always been "vapurware" so I'm very confused. How do you call things that arrive at the market *before* the exspected release date? HurryWare? ChronitonWare?
:)
I won't start an "ask slashdot"-Session for this but I'd like to invite you for collecting new words for this phenomenon.
Disclaimer: PS3 has still chances to become VapourWare
Here is a similar story on CNet.
And, for more on the "cell" technology, check out this Red Herring article from last summer, and this Inquirier.net article that includes a picture from the USPT office.
Given all that, I'd still be surprised if this was in US stores in time for XMas. I just don't think they'll have enough time to hype it sufficiently. On the other hand, if the tech is really almost done, do they want to wait until XMas 2004? Hrm....
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
Also picked up on Bloomberg. I don't have a link to the article, but here is the entire article:
Sony Denies Report That It Will Release PlayStation 3 This Year
2003-03-09 22:29 (New York)
Sony Denies Report That It Will Release PlayStation 3 This Year
Tokyo, March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's
largest maker of video-game consoles, denied a report in Taiwan's
Commercial Times newspaper that it will introduce the successor to
its PlayStation 2 video-game console as earlier as this year.
``The report is wrong,'' said Koichiro Katsurayama, a
spokesman at Tokyo-based Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Sony's
games unit. ``The timing of the successor machine to PlayStation 2
has not been decided.''
Sony may start selling the PlayStation 3 in Japan as early as
mid-year and overseas by the end of the year, two years ahead of
schedule so Sony can widen its lead over rivals Nintendo Co. and
Microsoft Corp., the Commercial Times said, citing unidentified
people at Taiwanese parts suppliers.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. of Taiwan, which assembles
the PlayStation 2 for Sony, and other parts suppliers on the
island will start trial production next month, the report said.
Speculation over the timing of Sony's next console comes as
Kyoto-based Nintendo, the company behind the Mario the plumber
game character, prepares a new version of its GameCube machine.
Chip Development
Tokyo-based Sony, in collaboration with International
Business Machines Corp. and Toshiba Corp., is developing a new
processor, called ``Cell,'' which will be capable of handling
sophisticated graphics and sound over the Internet.
Sony and Toshiba, Japan's largest chipmaker, plan to use
``Cell'' in a range of digital consumer products, including TVs,
cellular phones and the successor to the PlayStation 2.
The chip is still in development, Molly Smith, a spokeswoman
with Sony Computer Entertainment America, said on March 4.
Sales of the PlayStation 2 console, which debuted in Japan
three years ago this month, exceeded 50 million units in January.
Sony released the PlayStation 2 four years after the company
introduced the original PlayStation console.
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
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I finally broke down and had my parents buy me one for Christmas.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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.
This was listed as a 'news' article in the APRIL edition of PSM. It also stated that ALL games on the PS3 would be cell shaded, and would even convert 'old' games to cell shade technology. The last line refernced that fact that this was an April Fools Joke.
Guess the real joke was on Bloomberg News.
"This must be a Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
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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