Slashdot Mirror
PSX Production Stops, Development Issues Rumored?
Thanks to GameScience for translating the news that Sony's PlayStation 2/DVR combination, the PSX, has temporarily ceased production in Japan, apparently "since the start of April." According to Sony representatives, the company is "in the middle of deciding when production will start again, based on the current stock levels, as well as the shift in demand for the unit", but the Japanese article claims "a development problem", suggesting "...both SCE's game unit and Sony's Blu-ray team are involved in the project, and apparently things haven't been running smoothly, resulting in some of PSX's functionality being mismatched" - is this partly referencing the PSX's initial feature downgrade? However, the PSX is "still on track for launch in Europe and North America in the second half of 2004."
I suspect that the real cause for stopping production is low sales, duh. I was in japan when the PSX launched - for the first week or so, you had to pre-order them, but after that, you could just walk into a store and buy one. Within about a month of launch, stores were giving 500-1,000 yen discounts (less than $10, but still).
With the pace of change in the hardware market, the PSX is steadily losing its feature edge. It's getting stale fast - I wonder if we'll really see it launch here in the U.S.
PSX was an acronym used mainly by the videogame press. Sony of America's press releases (like this one) use "PlayStation", "PS" and "PS one" to refer to the original Playstation. They've been doing that at least since 2001.
AFAIK, after Nintendo dropped Sony's contract to create a SNES console with CD capabilities (which was referred as the Playstation), Sony decided to create its own console using the Playstation as its base, and this project was baptized as Playstation X. When the console was marketed the 'X' was dropped fron its official name, but the press still used the X in the acronym. Dunno why... maybe because it sounded cool?
I agree that Playstation X may sound unoriginal, but since Sony of Japan never used the name in a released product in that market I don't see much trouble. I think it fits - after all the PSX is more than a PS2, but it is not a new Playstation console. Of course, they might run a bit of a problem when they try to market a PS3 with added functionality... will it be known as PSX2? Or a PS3X, maybe?
i live in tokyo and have a psx. and it rocks. but the way to think about it is not as a souped up ps2. its a HDD recorder with a whole bunch of extra stuff, including a 24x DVD writer, ps2, optical audio out, built in electronic tv guide, etc chucked in to sweeten the deal. When i first heard of them i thought the same as you guys, 80 000 yen for a ps2 with some extra stuff - bullshit !
/. It won't appear here because seems like japanese just aren't much of a hacker nation.
but when i checked out the price of HDD video recorders with DVD burner built in, they were all 40-60 000 yen more. so i bought it, hooked it up to cable, set it up, went to Hong Kong for a holiday and it recorded the entire series of classic 007 films while i was away, from Dr No thru to Live & Let Die. pretty cool.
the GUI also rocks. super simple. one button record. edit. burn to dvd at 24x. plug in a usb keyboard for naming all of those movies. all good.
obviously when it was released it was still in development and pushed out the door for christmas. The second upgrade for it has just come out. includes things like ability to burn DVD-+R/RW, supports some more music playback functions etc but still doesnt include what i'd like - DIVX support and the ability to network it via the ethernet port.
This is the one thing i really want- so that i can network it with my macs and upload movies into it. That is the one "feature" that Sony will not implement but i expect to appear at latest 2 weeks after it appears on the US market, no doubt via
you can of course transfer DIVX's in the old-skool way by playing them in via line in.. but once this thing can be networked it will totally kick ass..