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Sony Delays PSX To 2005 In U.S.
Thanks to Bloomberg.com for its story revealing Sony is delaying the American release of its PSX PlayStation 2/digital video recorder combo device until 2005, allegedly "because the device may not appeal to U.S. consumers", according to the article. Dick Komiyama, although not explicitly stating these worries, said: "We're working very hard to make the technology feasible for U.S. consumers", and analyst Masayuki Ito argued: "'Delays give a bad impression... Investors probably didn't have high expectations for the product' because it has had little appeal in Japan." We recently discussed the debut of an enhanced PSX in Japan, as well as earlier issues with last year's Japanese launch.
Sony was right about how this might not appeal to the American audience, or other audiences for that matter, for a number of reasons: 1) Who in the world would want to record up to 325 hours' worth of TV shows, commercials or movies? Granted, that's 325 hours worth of highest-compressed video at which quality wouldn't be top-notch, but IMO, 80 hours is more than enough. I don't use TiVo, since I don't watch much TV, but if you think about it...300 hours is a bit too much. 2) PSX: $700 or $900, depending on the size of the HDD you want (these are Japanese prices, but I doubt the American ones wouldn't be much different). PS2: $150. 80GB TiVo: $210-$300. Do the math. 3) IMHO, this is a very overpriced and under-appealing gadget from sony corp.
I just got used to the idea that the PSX would not make it to North America, but I guess its coming anyways. It really makes me wonder as an owner of a PS2 HDD though as to the kind of support PSX owners could expect. Sure we will get the new hardware revision due out in Japan, but after the thing is out then what? How much visible support for the PS2 HDD been from Sony? This is a similar enough product (niche wise) so I don't think it looks good...
I am very very convinced once this thing is marketed, it will cause mass confusion in the US. Is it me or wasn't PS1 first called PSX before PS2 came out. Why the hell did Sony pick such a similar name to represent a new product. How about PS2.5 or PS2++ or PS special edition or something.
Although Microsoft has stated that they intend to release in 2005, Sony don't seem as keen to do so (and really, with their current sales why would they?). They have announced they will start production, but that means very little, who knows when the console will actually ship.
On the other hand, if Microsoft do ship in 2005, and Sony aren't ready, Microsoft may enjoy huge success with no competition. But say Sony were to release their PSX at the same time as the new Xbox... it might not outsell it, but it will probably still get a bunch of sales - it plays all existing games, has all that added functionality, and happens to look sexy as hell.
I wouldn't be suprised if the delay in the PSX release is just to align it with the new xbox - that way they may hurt the xbox release enough that it doesn't get the critical mass the Playstation and Playstation 2 did.
Before too many people get into a tizzy, I just want to point out two things about the PSX in Japan.
First, the Playstation was never called the PSX in Japan. The internal prototype name was apparently picked up and carried by foreign game magazines / sites, but in Japan, the Playstation was always called the Playstation (or Puresute for short, as PlayStation is Pureisuteshon in Japanese).
Second, while the PSX is damn expensive, it's actually not poorly priced for Japan. Sure, you can get a Tivo for a lot cheaper in America, but there is no Tivo in Japan. The average hard disk TV recorder thingy starts at $500 and goes up here, so the PSX is about the price of buying a PS2 and a hard disk recorder anyway, if not a bit cheaper.
That said, it's tacitly clear why the PSX is not appealing to the US market: it costs more than a Tivo and a PS2 combined, by a good margin.