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Sony Cancels PS3 Showing
Gamespot has word that the planned pre-E3 showing of the Playstation 3 console, to be held in Japan, has been canceled. From the article: "Sony told Reuters that it decided to cancel the PS3 meeting because it 'would pressure game publishers' if held in March, but it left the door open for another pre-E3 event. The company also emphasized that the cancellation is not a sign that the PlayStation 3 development is falling behind, and it still intends to unveil the machine at E3 at the latest."
You'll pry it out of my cold dead hands.
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As VG history shows us, when a company releases a system they like to wait until others have shown their hands first, hoping to trump them. PS1 did it to Saturn, PS2 did it to DC (just as it was gaining steam) and they are hoping to do the same to MS at E3.
I was getting all excited, thinking that had said Sony cancled the PS3.
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I guess they've picked up the tactic from Microsoft, who habitually announce their products and its feature sets way before the products are in development.
But this time around, with a strong competition from Microsofts Xbox 2, delays could really hurt Sony. I hope they get the console out in time, so that we'll still have a competetive console market.
If they're not actually behind schedule the only other reason i can think of is that they're worried if they reveal too much now then the PS3 will be old hat compared to the X-Box 2 and Nintendo Revolution when E3 comes around.
Tin-foil hat conspiracy theory:
The "leaked" images of the PS3 were real. Sony is now redesigning the system so that competitors don't have time to "steal their ideas" or otherwise capitalize on them. Either that, or they simply do not want to risk further leaks.
Honestly, I can usually spot a fake pretty easily, but the images at the link above would be pretty difficult to fake. I've seen the images that some people think were the originals (before alteration into the PS3 image), one of which is actually at the bottom right of that brochure page, and the angle of the shot is different, the textures are all different, there are no chrome reflections, no reflective plastic finish, I mean these are hard things to alter/add to an image. If this is a fake, it was done by a real pro.
Just because there are a lot of fake mockups floating around the net doesn't mean that all of them are. My bet since I first saw that image is that it's real, and that it was a real leak. The timing of this announcement, putting off the PS3 unveiling, now seems incredibly suspicious to me, coming just a week or so after this photo hit. There are two things you can do after a major leak - make your public announcement immediately (to minimize the current damage) or lock everything down (to minimize future damage, and discredit the current leaked info as fake). It seems possible Sony has chosen to do the latter.
Apparently you've never seen some of the stuff the Apple crowd likes to fake. The number one thing that makes me think it is a fake is the reflection on the front face. When was the last time you could remember a shiny video game console? I can't remember any. Kids are going to be rough on these machines and a gloss exterior would make it look like shit in no time when my 6 year old gets ahold of it.
Faking images isn't that difficult, motivation is the hard part. Why the hell would someone want to waste their time doing it? That lends to the credibility of the images. I'd give it a 70% fake and 30% real guess.
Personally I don't care because I hate the PS game controllers. The S-Controller for the XBox is by far my favorite (very similar to the gravis aftershock I have for my pc).
I am sure if they wanted to they could show off the basic packaging. I have two theiories as to why they are delaying: 1) Cell is a chip that is so complex that only now are they begining to be able to get half decent runs of. They are probebly more concerned getting those processors ready for the development kits then to make demonstration units of the consle. They could always show off the development kit, but it doesnt have the same appeal as showing the real consumer product. Lets face it Cell doesnt need to be comercialy viable until the end of this year. With how radical it is of a design it will take some time to get the process up to where they have spare capacity and teach the developers how to code for the new architecture. 2) Due to the lawsuit with Immersion there is a chance they may be forced to axe the dual shock controler. If so you will see a controler re-design and perhaps even a port re-design. It would look bad if they had to do another re-design of anything they show before their launch.
I'm failing to understand what the issue with "pressuring game publishers" is.
Perhaps they don't want to pressure developers into rushing something to be ready to demo at this pre-E3 showing. It's all well and good for them to have hardware ready to show, but they need software to demo as well, otherwise you just have a box.
I just bought one last week, as a matter of fact... "PSP", I think it was called? I forget who makes it.....